Researchers aim to enable hydrogen production at sea

First milestone presented

To make Germany’s energy supply climate-neutral, hydrogen technologies play a key role. They make it possible to store electricity generated from renewable sources and use it when wind and sun are not producing energy. The project “wind2hydrogen” at the Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences is exploring ways to convert energy from offshore wind farms directly into hydrogen at sea. To this end, researchers in Bremerhaven are cooperating with the University of Bremen and the Bremerhaven-based company EnPro GmbH. The first milestone was recently presented. The project is funded by BIS Bremerhaven Economic Development Company Ltd. and co-financed through the "EFRE Bremen 2021–2027" program.

In 2025, around 1,600 offshore wind turbines supplied approximately six percent of Germany’s annual electricity to the public grid. To transport this energy to shore, undersea cables must be laid — a major cost factor in the installation of the plants and an environmental consideration that requires careful planning. A potentially more cost-effective solution could be to convert the generated electricity directly on-site into hydrogen, thereby storing it. However, the seawater required for electrolysis would first need to be desalinated.

This is where the Bremerhaven researchers come in. Their focus within the project is the process engineering design and development of a floating hydrogen production facility — that is, figuring out what such a platform could look like and how it would operate. This comes with several challenges: the platform must operate autonomously and withstand harsh offshore conditions. The team recently presented its first milestone. “Over the past months, we’ve looked intensively into the platform’s structure and researched potential processes for water treatment. Through market analysis, we can determine which components already exist. This allows us to build on existing technologies, speeding up the path to market readiness,” explains Marc-Kevin Baer, a research associate on the project. This analysis is a key element of the work. “It’s possible that the technical requirements identified in the study will exceed what the market currently offers, meaning that the industry will need to develop further solutions based on our final recommendations,” adds project leader Prof. Dr. Uwe Werner.
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In the coming months, the researchers plan to develop a model that can simulate different hydrogen platform concepts. This will allow them to estimate installation costs and operational risks. By the end of the project next year, a concrete design for a test facility is expected to be completed.