The ‘wind2hydrogen’ project starts  at Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences

At the beginning of 2025, a good 1,600 offshore wind turbines were feeding around six per cent of Germany's annual electricity volume into the public grid. Submarine cables have to be laid to bring the energy ashore - a real cost driver when installing the turbines. A cheaper solution could be to convert the electricity generated directly into hydrogen on site and store it in this way. "The use of offshore hydrogen is a promising concept in the context of the desired transformation of energy systems towards a resilient, sustainable energy supply system. As an energy storage medium, hydrogen is versatile and makes it possible to combine the advantages of renewable energy sources such as offshore wind farms in the gigawatt range with hydrogen production to produce a clean and versatile energy source," explains Prof Dr Uwe Werner, project manager at Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences. However, the seawater used for electrolysis would first have to be desalinated.

Floating hydrogen production plant is the goal

This is where the work of the Bremerhaven researchers comes into play. Their focus in the project is the planning and development of a floating hydrogen production plant. "The technical planning includes a comparison of different desalination processes, the selection of two process combinations and the dimensioning of key plant parts and components of these processes. This includes, for example, selecting suitable materials and determining the size of the plant. This should be low-maintenance and fully automatic in continuous operation, whereby its output should be independently adjusted to the requirements of the H2 electrolysis," says Prof. Dr.-Ing. The question of feasibility also plays an important role. In addition to costs, this also includes aspects of safety as well as occupational health and safety and environmental protection.
Installing a floating electrolysis plant poses a number of challenges. It must function autonomously and withstand the difficult environmental conditions at sea. Whether this is technically possible at all at present will become clear in the course of the project. ‘It may be that the technical requirements that are developed in the study go beyond what is currently available on the market and will have to be solved by the industry later on the basis of the final catalogue of recommendations,’ explains Prof. Werner.

Project is scheduled to run for two years

The ‘wind2hydrogen’ project is funded by BIS Bremerhavener Gesellschaft für Investitionsförderung und Stadtentwicklung mbH. The project will run for two years.

Translated with DeepL