Industrial gas major Air Liquide will build a facility to produce fully renewable, or green, hydrogen at the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands after making a final investment decision for the ELYgator project.
The project, an electrolyser plant that splits water to produce hydrogen, will have a capacity of 200MW and is slated to begin operations by the end of 2027.
The €500m facility will be located at the conversion park at the Maasvlakte area, where electricity from wind farms in the North Sea will be used to produce 23,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year for use by industry and heavy transport.
According to Air Liquide, this will lead to a carbon dioxide reduction of 300,000 tonnes per year.
The Port of Rotterdam is home to a fledgling network of pipelines, terminals, and offshore reservoirs, which are laying the groundwork for a massive joint decarbonisation effort.
“We believe the Port of Rotterdam is very well-positioned to play a role [in decarbonisation],” said Dorus Bakker, Project Manager at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, who spoke at gasworld’s European CO2 Summit in Rotterdam earlier this year.
“We’re the largest energy port in Europe, with over 13% of European energy flows coming through here. That provides a very huge and stable basis for decarbonisation.”
Much of this is being realised through large-scale carbon capture and storage projects such as Porthos and CO2next, which will initially handle nearly 10 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
However, the site is also expected to become a major hub for hydrogen production, import, and distribution led by companies such as Shell, Uniper, and Gasunie. In addition to energy generation at the conversion park, it will feature a hydrogen network for transport and import terminals for liquid hydrogen, ammonia, and other derivatives.
