Forty-three new projects were added to our database in the last month, across green and blue hydrogen as well as in the transport sector.

Of the new projects, 19 are in Europe (France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the UK), 13 are in North America (Canada and the US), seven are in Asia-Pacific (Australia, China, India, Japan and New Zealand), three are in Africa (Algeria, Egypt and Morocco) and one is in South & Central America (Chile).

In Germany, the AquaSector partners—Shell, Germany energy company RWE, Norway’s state-owned Equinor and Dutch gas grid operator Gasunie—signed a declaration of intent to further their collaboration on the project. AquaSector would see the installation of approximately 300MW of electrolyser capacity to produce up to 20,000t/yr of green hydrogen around 115km offshore in the North Sea. It will be Germany’s first large-scale offshore hydrogen park. The project is anticipated to utilise wind priority area SEN-1 (although the tendering process has yet to begin), with the hydrogen transported via a pipeline (known as AquaDuctus) to the Heligoland archipelago from 2028. This would then form part of the larger AquaVentus wind-to-hydrogen initiative. AquaSector is seen as a key milestone in the implementation of the German and European hydrogen strategies.

In Canada, the proposed Polaris CCS project would capture CO2 from the Shell-owned Scotford refinery and chemicals plant near Edmonton. The initial phase is expected to start around the middle of the decade, subject to FID being taken in 2023, and would capture and store approximately 750,000t/yr of CO2, reducing Shell’s direct and indirect emissions by up to 40pc from the refinery and by up to 30pc from the chemicals plant. In the initial phase, CO2 captured from the refinery’s hydrogen plants would produce blue hydrogen for use in the refining process, with the potential for large-scale blue hydrogen production in future phases. The second phase of the project involves the creation of a 10mn t/yr CO2 storage hub in Alberta for third-party users. Once fully built, Polaris would contribute to the Edmonton region being Canada’s first hydrogen hub.

Italy’s Eni & Algerian state-owned Sonatrach plan to build on a previous agreement to step up technological cooperation with a focus on hydrogen by producing green hydrogen in Algeria in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of their activities. A pilot project to produce hydrogen from renewable sources is being assessed. The companies are also considering the possibility of using water produced by oilfields for the electrolysis process, after appropriate treatment, to help preserve Algeria’s scarce water supply. Eni has been present in Algeria since 1981.

 

 

Comprehensive details can be found on the Hydrogen Data Service.