The North Sea offers yet another way to use renewable energy with the production and storage of green hydrogen through electrolysis. In Kassø, Denmark, the world's largest e-Methanol production plant is being built, which will produce 42,000 tons of e-Methanol annually, synthesized from hydrogen and captured CO2. “The electricity for the 50-megawatt electrolyzer plant will come from a local solar park and wind power from the sea,” says Holger Riess, Project Manager for Siemens Energy in Kassø. The project uses Siemens Energy electrolyzer technology to produce hydrogen. This is fed into a synthesis process where it is combined with carbon dioxide to produce e-Methanol.
Most of the e-Methanol will be supplied to the Danish shipping group, Maersk, to power their container ships. The green fuel is seen as crucial to the energy transition in shipping, which accounts for 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. “There are about 55,000 ships in the maritime sector that run on fossil fuels, and e-Methanol is seen as one of the most important solutions to make these ships carbon neutral,” Riess says.
Hydrogen is not only in demand for shipping, but will also be used to reduce emissions from steel mills, refineries and the chemical industry. However, this will require millions of tons of green fuels. For the green transition, the world will need many energy hubs like the North Sea – with large-scale production of energy from renewable sources, interconnected grids and powerful plants to produce clean fuels.