The electricity transmission network operator Tennet and the gas network operators Gasunie and Thyssengas are developing joint plans for the development of a hydrogen infrastructure. The three network operators see the best exploitable potential for the production of green hydrogen in the north-western part of Lower Saxony and in Schleswig-Holstein. This is the result of a study by the three companies that is available to the Handelsblatt.
Green hydrogen plays a key role on the way to the climate neutrality that is strived for by 2045. It is produced using electricity from renewable sources through electrolysis and is climate-neutral. Sectors such as steel or chemistry depend on climate-neutral hydrogen in large quantities in order to decarbonise their processes.
The electricity and gas network operators recommend that the hydrogen electrolysis take place where electricity from renewable sources is also generated in large quantities, i.e. in the coastal regions with a high density of wind farms. In theory, another approach would also be conceivable.
The electricity from renewable sources could be transported to the chemical and steel sites for on-site electrolysis. However, this would make it necessary to further expand the power transmission lines across Germany. The expansion of the power grids is already proving to be difficult.
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This is where the gas network operators come into play. They advocate using the existing gas network infrastructure to transport the hydrogen from the coasts to the country’s centers of consumption. You had already presented specific plans for this last year. By 2030, a “hydrogen starter network” is to be created, which essentially connects future hydrogen producers with hydrogen consumers in the industrial centers of north-west Germany.
Plan gas and electricity networks together
This network is then to be expanded into a Germany-wide network in a second step after 2030. In both cases, the plans are based on reallocating existing gas pipelines for the use of hydrogen. Only a small part of the future hydrogen infrastructure would therefore have to be rebuilt.
Tennet, Gasunie and Thyssengas are convinced that in future it will be necessary to jointly plan the electricity and gas network infrastructure. So far, the expansion of the two infrastructures has been considered separately. This is reflected in separate network development plans, which are regularly updated in accordance with the Energy Industry Act and confirmed by the Federal Network Agency.
“Only through integrated planning of the infrastructure in the areas of electricity and gas and the resulting identification of suitable locations for hydrogen electrolysis can economic misallocations be avoided,” says the study by the three companies.
Electrolysis can relieve power grids
According to the authors, the north-western part of Lower Saxony is particularly suitable for hydrogen electrolysis for various reasons. One of these reasons is the strong wind power generation; the number of hours per year in which wind power cannot be meaningfully integrated into the power grid is at a high level.
It makes sense to use this electricity for electrolysis and thus to help relieve the power grid. “The storage potential of the gas infrastructure can counteract the temporal separation between volatile generation and use of green hydrogen,” it says.
At the same time, the natural gas network in Lower Saxony is being converted. The background to this is the announcement by the Dutch that they will cease production in the Groningen gas field. The gas from the Dutch neighbors has so far played a central role in Lower Saxony’s energy supply. Now other gas has to be procured. The gas network must be converted to other gas qualities.
As a result, “existing natural gas pipelines could be made usable for a large-scale distribution of hydrogen in the short term,” the study says. The existing gas infrastructure helps to transport the generated green hydrogen to the major load centers.
“In a second step, large electrolysers in Schleswig-Holstein can be connected to a hydrogen network after 2025,” the authors write. Even beforehand, regional hydrogen applications could relieve the bottleneck situation in the power transmission network in the short term.
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