Ørsted and BP strike up green hydrogen partnership in Germany

Ørsted and the multinational oil and gas major bp have agreed to jointly develop a potential large-scale renewable hydrogen project in Germany powered by offshore wind.

The project, which is expected to be operational in 2024, will comprise a 50 MW electrolyser system installed at bp’s Lingen Refinery in North West Germany.

The electrolyser, powered by an Ørsted North Sea offshore wind farm, will be capable of generating almost 9,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen a year.

The project is also intended to support a longer-term ambition to build more than 500 MW of renewable hydrogen capacity at Lingen. This could provide renewable hydrogen to both meet all the refinery’s hydrogen demand and provide feedstock for future synthetic fuel production.

“Heavy industries such as refineries use large quantities of hydrogen in their manufacturing processes,” Martin Neubert, Executive Vice President for Ørsted, said.

”They will continue to need hydrogen, but replacing the currently fossil-based hydrogen with hydrogen produced from renewable energy can help these industries dramatically lower their CO2 footprint. But first, renewable hydrogen has to become cost competitive with fossil-based hydrogen, and for that we need projects such as this with bp’s Lingen refinery which will demonstrate the electrolyser technology at large scale and showcase real-life application of hydrogen based on offshore wind.”

Besides the green hydrogen production itself, the project is additionally focusing on maximizing the efficiency of the electrolyser system and allowing flexible operation and complete integration into the refinery. Therefore, the scope of the engineering and commercial studies will also include assessments for sustainable uses of the main by-products of electrolysis, primarily oxygen and low-grade excess heat.

“Hydrogen will have an increasing role to play in meeting the energy demands of a decarbonizing world,” Dev Sanyal, bp’s executive vice president for gas and low carbon, said.

”And we are determined to build a leading position in this emerging industry. Bringing together Ørsted and bp, Lingen Green Hydrogen offers the opportunity both to accelerate significant emissions reduction in our refinery and build experience of large-scale green hydrogen production and deployment. This has the potential to play an important role in the development of a hydrogen economy, in Germany and beyond.”

Ørsted and bp have jointly applied for funding for the project named Lingen Green Hydrogen from the EU Innovation Fund.