French company seeking contractors to design offshore hydrogen ecosystem

A French company specializing in renewable energy production has issued a contract notice seeking contractors for the design and supply of an offshore hydrogen production and transport ecosystem.

EDF Renewables, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the French utility EDF Group, published the contract notice with an aim to achieve the following objectives:

• to develop and install a fixed platform for accommodating an offshore hydrogen production platform that can be operated remotely;
• to develop and install an offshore electrolyzer fully integrated into the remotely-operated hydrogen production platform for which control, inspection, and maintenance operations will be automated and optimized for use on high seas;
• to design, certify, and operate, or have operated, a vessel for storing and transporting hydrogen in the gaseous state which is adapted to the platform and the reception infrastructure of the port of destination, and
• to develop and install a hydrogen transshipment system.

The company intends to achieve these objectives through an innovation partnership in a maximum of five successive phases.

According to the notice dispatched on September 15, 2023, the contracts will be divided into three lots and tenders may be submitted for all lots. The signing of the partnership contracts should take place around September 2024.

Lot 1 will be awarded for a fixed offshore hydrogen production platform including the transshipment solution from the platform to the gaseous hydrogen transport vessel.

Lot 2 covers the development of an electrolyzer optimized for operation on offshore platforms while Lot 3 is related to the gaseous hydrogen transport vessel that will meet the constraints of the platform and the port.

All contracts are subject to renewal.

The time limit for interested parties to submit their applications is set for November 20, 2023, at 4 p.m. local time.

In the meantime, EDF Renewables UK and Hynamics, a 100% subsidiary of EDF Group specialising in hydrogen, progressed to the final stages of the UK government’s Net Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF) for its North East-based Tees Green Hydrogen project.

The project proposes to use the green electricity from nearby Teesside Offshore Wind Farm along with a new solar farm, which EDF Renewables UK intends to construct near Redcar, to power the hydrogen electrolyzer and supply green hydrogen to local industry and transport to support decarbonization efforts and achieve a significant reduction in industrial pollution.

This time last year, another French company inaugurated an offshore renewable green hydrogen production demonstrator in Saint-Nazaire, France. The platform, dubbed Sealhyfe, was set up by Lhyfe in collaboration with Chantiers de l’Atlantique. It began producing its first kilograms of offshore hydrogen on June 20, 2023.