Uniper and Siemens have agreed to work together to scale-up the production and utilisation of “green hydrogen” across energy, transport and industry.
As part of the cooperation agreement, the long-running partners will explore the potential for existing fossil fuel power stations and storage facilities – both coal and gas in the case of the former – to be converted to operate with hydrogen.
Uniper recently announced plans to close or convert all of its coal plants in Europe by 2025.
Green hydrogen is produced by splitting apart water using renewable electricity, as opposed to blue hydrogen, which is produced by splitting apart methane.
Uniper claimed to be a “pioneer” in the field having built one of the world’s first green hydrogen production plants at Falkenhagen in 2013, followed by another in Hamburg in 2015. It added a methanisation plant to the Falkenhagen facility in 2018.
The company said it was also working on cross-sector projects for the utilisation of green hydrogen in transport and industry.
Uniper chief executive Andreas Schierenbeck said the decarbonisation of gas will be the essential next step if Europe is to meet its climate change targets following the phaseout of coal: “We are ready to invest and have set the strategic course to significantly accelerate the decarbonisation of our portfolio.”
Siemens Energy executive board member Jochen Eickholt said: “Green hydrogen can contribute to achieving climate targets and is thus a key to a successful energy turnaround. And it can do so across sectors in industry, mobility, and heat and power generation.
“But we’re only at the beginning. Joint projects with our customers, such as the partnership with Uniper focusing on brownfield transformation and the design of the green hydrogen value chain, are extremely important here.
“Here we can show that a carbon dioxide-free, environmentally friendly energy supply is possible and makes sense under real conditions and using existing plants.
“Together, we are working to master the challenges up to series production and use of hydrogen on a large scale and to make this clear to the world: Our future lies in hydrogen. This is what we are committed to as a company.”
Plans by gas networks in Britain to convert their assets to work with hydrogen have initially centred around the production of blue hydrogen, which can be largely but not completely decarbonised by capturing and storing the emissions from the process.
Analysis by Northern Gas Networks (NGN) as part of the H21 project suggested green hydrogen production was too expensive for the time being and would take too long to scale up.
However, Graham Cooley, chief executive of electrolyser firm ITM Power, believes green hydrogen could be cost-competitive with blue hydrogen with carbon capture and storage (CCS) by the end of the current decade.
Cooley told Utility Week last year that he thought green hydrogen could be produced for as little as £48/MWh by 2030, compared to NGN’s estimates of £155/MWh for green hydrogen and £60/MWh for blue hydrogen with CCS.
Speaking at a conference held by Utility Week’s sister title Network, National Grid Gas Transmission head of engineering, Anthony Green, said he too believed green hydrogen would be cost-competitive with blue hydrogen by 2030 and should be the end goal for the sector, but that blue hydrogen would also be needed as a stepping stone on the way there.
In February, the government awarded £28 million to five projects to accelerate the production of both blue and green hydrogen.