When it comes to large scale hydrogen projects, few are on the scale of the Nordic-Baltic hydrogen corridor.
The ambitious project aims to connect Finland, the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), Poland and Germany with a 2,500km hydrogen pipeline by 2030.
It supports the EU’s hydrogen strategy and REPowerEU plan and several regional and EU climate goals, such as the EU’s Green Deal program and the Fit for 55 preparedness package.
Project Director Joonas Laitila, who is also Project Manager at Gasgrid Hydrogen Networks, shared his insights in a gasworld webinar today hosted by sister title H2 View.
He said it has completed the pre-feasibility study and will now proceed to the feasibility stage.
“All in all, it’s a very exciting project,” he said. “It’s very good to highlight and underscore the role of infrastructure in the large sense of things, but I think we can all agree that if we want a liquid and Europe-expanded market, we need to be physically connected.”
Given the scale of the project, he said communication is key, along with understanding customers’ needs and the hydrogen value chain in each country.
“There are always going to be uncertainties and risks when you develop something so large, but you can’t let the small things get in the way,” he said.
Reflecting on the financial difficulties facing the hydrogen sector, he said more support is needed along with more coordination between governments on how to get infrastructure off the ground – as befits the remit of the Nordic-Baltic corridor.
“But we see a lot of good initiatives, from Germany and lately from Denmark on how to de-risk. We come back to the offtake, we need to align and make sure there is a sufficient degree of offtake.”
The webinar also revealed the top 10 locations for large-scale hydrogen projects with the list dominated by Asia.
Source: H2 View / gasworld
The Hydrogen Council reports over 1,400 large-scale hydrogen project proposals globally, representing a total investment of over $570bn to 2030, but only a small proportion have reached final investment decision. The majority are planned for completion or partial commissioning by 2030.
