Success for World’s First Offshore Hydrogen Production Pilot
The Sealhyfe project, equipped with a 1-MW electrolyzer supplied by Plug, has succeeded in demonstrating that producing hydrogen offshore from renewable energy sources is feasible.
More specifically, the experiment aimed to:
-Demonstrate Lhyfe’s ability to operate an industrial-scale production unit in an isolated environment.
-Prove the reliability of the electrolysis technology in harsh environmental conditions that are representative of the operating conditions of its future large-scale offshore sites.
-Provide a database of operating data that can be used to optimize and make production processes more reliable, and to test the technologies employed with a view to scaling them up to sites with 10 times and then 100 times greater capacity.
A range of measurement and data collection instruments were installed on board Sealhyfe to ensure precise management and control of all the production unit’s parameters from September 2022 to November 2023, first at the quayside and then at sea.
The results of this experiment are already being incorporated into the HOPE project, which represents the second stage in Lhyfe’s offshore ambitions. This project, which Lhyfe presented with a consortium of nine partners, was selected by the European Commission for a €20 million grant as part of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, along with an additional €13 million grant from the Belgian government. With HOPE, Lhyfe and its partners aim to commercialize green hydrogen produced offshore. From 2026, this unprecedentedly large-scale project (10 MW) will be able to produce up to 4 tonnes per day of green hydrogen at sea, which will be exported ashore by pipeline, then compressed and delivered to customers.
The Sealhyfe project will also ensure that the production processes at Lhyfe’s land-based sites are reliable and optimized from the outset, so that they can be ramped up quickly and progressively.
Lhyfe’s ambition is to have a production capacity of up to 22 tonnes of green hydrogen per day by the end of 2024 and up to 80 tonnes per day by 2026.