Gasunie – Hydrogen pipeline plays crucial role in industrial energy transition at Port of Rotterdam
Work on a hydrogen pipeline in the Port of Rotterdam area is in its final stages. This is the first section of what will become a European hydrogen network. Its success hinges on regulations, market development and cooperation between businesses and government bodies. But without this first step in building the infrastructure, the hydrogen economy will not get off the ground.
The first section of Hydrogen Network Netherlands is almost complete. Gasunie subsidiary Hynetwork has laid a 32-kilometre pipeline in Rotterdam’s port and industrial area to transport hydrogen from the Maasvlakte to customers in the industrial area of the port. ‘Now that the final weld has been made, they are finishing up the work. Then the final step will be to connect the pipeline to the hydrogen producers and consumers’, says Mark Stoelinga, who is involved in the construction as Manager of Energy & Infrastructure at the Port of Rotterdam Authority.
There is no shortage of potential producers and consumers. European regulations require the industry to gradually become more sustainable. There are various ways to achieve this, such as electrifying production processes, capturing and storing CO2, or switching to hydrogen, and that requires this pipeline.
Green hydrogen plant
Energy company Uniper has advanced plans to build a large 500-megawatt electrolyser to produce green hydrogen. ‘In the first phase, we’ll start with a 200-megawatt electrolyser. The technical design for this is ready’, says Martijn Overgaag, who is responsible for hydrogen activities at Uniper. In summer 2025, Uniper was awarded a € 297 million grant for the first phase. ‘This is recognition of the value of our project, which is planned right next to the TenneT wind power landfall.’
But there is still work to be done. ‘Together with Hynetwork, we are conducting a design study about connecting the hydrogen plant to the pipeline.’ A hydrogen plant is also known as an electrolyser. Depending on the number of operating hours, a 200-megawatt electrolyser can produce approximately 20,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year.
Before Uniper makes the final investment decision, it wants to be sure that there are buyers so it can purchase the green electricity for the electrolyser, and it wants to know that the connection to the electricity grid and the hydrogen network will be available and affordable. Getting all this sorted out is a full-time job for Overgaag and his hydrogen team. ‘We’ll be ready to make a decision in the second half of 2026. Construction can then begin in 2027, and we will commission the hydrogen plant in 2030.’
The pipeline is vitally important
Shell is already one step ahead: construction of a 200-megawatt electrolyser at the first ‘conversion park’ on the Maasvlakte is almost complete. The green hydrogen that Shell will produce there will flow through the Hynetwork pipeline to Shell’s Pernis refinery. Instead of using grey hydrogen – which is made from natural gas – Shell will use green hydrogen to refine some of its crude oil, significantly reducing the company’s CO2 emissions. That makes Shell both a producer and a consumer of green hydrogen.
Air Liquide is also building a 200-megawatt electrolyser at the conversion park, which will further increase the total production capacity for green hydrogen at the Maasvlakte. Air Liquide has its own hydrogen pipeline, which includes a connection to the industrial area near the port in Antwerp.
Uniper is actively seeking customers in Rotterdam. ‘We’re in talks with many companies to sell the molecules’, Overgaag says. ‘Hynetwork’s pipeline is vitally important to Uniper. It’s essential that future customers also contact Hynetwork in good time to arrange a connection. That is crucial for us to be able to actually deliver hydrogen to customers.’
Demand for hydrogen is high in Rotterdam. ‘Altogether, there are 3,000 companies located in the Rotterdam port area. Of these, 20 are major users of hydrogen’, explains Stoelinga from the port authority. These 20 large companies – refineries, fertiliser factories and chemical plants – currently consume approximately 500,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year.
From grey to blue to green
The hydrogen currently used in Rotterdam’s industry is almost entirely grey, which means it is responsible for significant CO2 emissions. Replacing grey hydrogen is the next logical step in making the industry more sustainable. ‘For fertiliser, I can imagine that we will eventually import green ammonia’, Stoelinga says. Ammonia is an important raw material for fertiliser and is produced using hydrogen.
Green hydrogen is also being considered as an alternative to natural gas in industrial processes. ‘But that price difference is still very large at the moment’, Stoelinga notes. For this reason, he expects that low-carbon hydrogen (also known as blue hydrogen) – which is extracted from natural gas using CO2 capture and storage – will be an important interim solution in the coming years. For CO2 storage, work is underway on the Porthos project, which will use empty gas fields in the North Sea. The CO2 pipeline being constructed for this purpose runs partly parallel to the hydrogen pipeline.
Infrastructure as a precondition
The new pipeline route that is the first section of what is set to become a large, international hydrogen network. The hydrogen pipeline was built by Gasunie subsidiary Hynetwork, and it runs largely parallel to the A15 motorway in a wide pipeline corridor that also contains other energy infrastructure, such as the CO2 pipeline for the Porthos project.
The capacity of the hydrogen pipeline is about 1.2 million tonnes per year. That is considerably more than the current demand of 500,000 tonnes of hydrogen, but Stoelinga explains that this was a deliberate design choice. ‘You want to build for growth. If you tailor infrastructure to today’s demand, you’ll run up against new limitations tomorrow.’
Initially, the network is concentrated in the Rotterdam port area. Companies can be connected via branch lines as soon as they are ready to actually use or produce sustainable hydrogen. The industrial clusters in the Netherlands will be connected to each other in a subsequent phase. According to Hynetwork’s roll-out plan, this will happen in phases, and the final cluster will be connected ‘no later than 2033’. Eventually, the network will also be extended to industrial centres in Germany and Belgium as part of the Delta Rhine Corridor.
First create a market
The international connection also will be crucial for Uniper, but only after 2032. ‘In 2030, it will not be realistic to export large volumes of green hydrogen to Germany, so we will focus on Rotterdam in the first phase’, Overgaag explains. ‘There is already a lot of potential demand in Rotterdam itself. Now, the challenge lies mainly in creating a market.’
Legislation plays a crucial role in this process. European legislation, namely the Renewable Energy Directive (RED-3), stipulates that the use of ‘renewable fuels of non-biological origin’ (green hydrogen) must increase. This is how Brussels aims to give a boost to the sustainability of European industry. It includes the requirement that 42 per cent of hydrogen used by industry in 2030 must be sustainable. The Netherlands is still working on the precise details of this regulation at the national level.
In addition, the Netherlands has a mandatory blending requirement for transport fuels, under which 1 per cent renewable hydrogen must be included. ‘That’s essential for the first 200-megawatt electrolyser’, Overgaag says. ‘Once all the rules are clear and stable, there will be additional and guaranteed demand. That will make it possible for us to enter into long-term contracts.’
While German industry is an important hydrogen market to serve from Rotterdam via the Delta Rhine Corridor, Antwerp is also significant, Overgaag believes. ‘There is a lot of industry there, so there is a lot of future demand. Belgium has relatively little offshore wind, which limits its ability to produce its own green hydrogen. Therefore, the hydrogen connection to the south is also attractive for the Netherlands.’
But the most important thing is to remove the uncertainties around regulations. ‘Companies will not enter into long-term contracts if they do not know exactly what obligations and preconditions will apply after 2030.’ According to Overgaag, clarity on this issue could significantly accelerate the market.
Electricity and value to the system
At least as important as the hydrogen infrastructure is the availability of sustainable electricity. An electrolyser with a capacity of hundreds of megawatts requires vast amounts of power. Therefore, waiting times for grid connections and uncertainty about future grid tariffs pose a risk. ‘As long as we’re uncertain about these issues, we will not make any investment decisions’, says Overgaag.
At the same time, Uniper sees opportunities to add value to the energy system. After all, electrolysers can operate flexibly and produce hydrogen at precisely those times when there is a large supply of offshore wind. Hydrogen plants can smooth out peaks in the power grid. ‘But then the system has to be viewed holistically’, Overgaag notes. ‘At present, electricity and molecules are still too much like separate worlds.’
Rotterdam as a European hydrogen hub
For the Port of Rotterdam Authority, the hydrogen pipeline is part of a broader strategy to position the port as a European energy and raw materials hub. In addition to production, Rotterdam is also looking closely at importing hydrogen and hydrogen carriers, such as ammonia. Terminals are being prepared to receive, store and redistribute these flows.
Cooperation with other ports and industrial regions is essential here. Rotterdam is working with ports like Antwerp, Belgium and Duisburg, Germany to bundle supply and demand and roll out infrastructure as efficiently as possible. ‘We compete in many areas’, Stoelinga notes, ‘but when it comes to this kind of infrastructure, you have to work together. Otherwise, it simply won’t get off the ground.’
The first hydrogen from Shell is expected to flow through the new pipeline sometime in 2026. After that, the network can gradually fill up with more producers and consumers. The hydrogen pipeline in Rotterdam is therefore not an end point, but a beginning.
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Gasunie – Hydrogen pipeline plays crucial role in industrial energy transition at Port of Rotterdam, source
