Chemicals firm Ineos has received €770,000 ($803,000) from the government of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia to support a feasibility study for the construction of a 100MW water electrolysis facility.

The firm plans to build and operate the facility at its site in Cologne as part of its €2bn package of green hydrogen projects, announced in October last year.

“The funding decision shows the significance that the state of North Rhine-Westphalia attaches to our project,” says Stephan Muller, commercial energy manager for Ineos in Cologne.

The hydrogen produced would be used to decarbonise existing ammonia production at the plant, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by more than 100,000t/yr. It could also potentially be employed for the production of methanol and the decarbonisation of local transport applications.

“The funding decision shows the significance that the state of North Rhine-Westphalia attaches to our project” Muller, Ineos

“The project is an important step on the way to a climate-neutral chemical industry in North Rhine-Westphalia,” says the state’s former minister of economics and innovation, Andreas Pinkwart.

“North Rhine-Westphalia will become a model location for innovative value chains and the project shows how important hydrogen is in this process.”

Ineos is also planning to install a 20MW electrolyser at its Rafnes complex in Norway. The project will cut around 22,000 t/yr of CO₂ from the site’s operations and serve as a hub for supplying hydrogen to the Norwegian transport sector.

It is also developing projects in Belgium, France and the UK, and it expects to announce further partnerships with other organisations to develop new hydrogen applications.

Last year, Ineos committed £500mn ($687mn) to plans for a 150,000t/yr blue hydrogen plant to decarbonise its refinery and petrochemical operations at Grangemouth in Scotland.

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Author: Tom Young