Decarbonisation Technology - February 2023

Raffinerie Heide

Credit: Raffinerie Heide and Ingo Barenschee

process will be examined within the scope of Westküste 100. The various sub-projects of the Westküste 100 real-world laboratory ultimately provide integrated technical, scientific, and economic findings. These fundamental insights are the prerequisite for implementing the decarbonisation of the industry, the supply of heat, chemistry and mobility with an electrolysis output capacity of several hundred megawatts planned by the Westküste 100 partners following the conclusion of the project in the year 2025. Main work programme for Raffinerie Heide The Westküste 100 real-world laboratory is subdivided into seven main work packages (MWPs). Raffinerie Heide is leading two of these: MWP 1 and 3. In MWP 1, H2 Westküste GmbH, a joint venture between Hynamics Deutschland, Ørsted Deutschland, and Raffinerie Heide, was established for this purpose. The JV is responsible for selecting the technology, planning, construction, and commissioning of a 30 MW electrolysis facility using energy from RES. The JV partners will also observe and process all associated approval aspects. The electrolysis facility will be installed at the Raffinerie Heide site. The facility will be integrated with the existing processes in the refinery for a large-scale demonstration of the generation and use of green hydrogen. From the

operation of the electrolyser, insights into the maintenance, control, and operational concepts will be gathered for the Westküste 100 real- world laboratory project. Within MWP 3, work will be carried out on re-purposing and upgrading a cavern, near Raffinerie Heide, for storing the green hydrogen. The cavern will provide long-term storage and serve as a buffer tank in the overall system of Westküste 100. By storing the hydrogen, it will be possible to convert the available RES, such as wind power, into a continuous stream of material for industrial use, as the hydrogen will also be available in times of insufficient wind or sun (the dark doldrums). Once the cavern is in operation, the aim is to obtain additional insights into the control performance, response speeds, and data on the optimum integration of the cavern into a fluctuating system and formulate the scale-up to an electrolysis output of several hundred megawatts. In addition, the MWP 3 will manage the design and implementation of the upgrading of the cavern for hydrogen storage, as well as the construction of a hydrogen transfer route and manage the permitting process to obtain the necessary legal approvals. The vision: the 2025+ scenario At the Westküste 100 real-world laboratory, by 2025 an electrolysis facility with an output of 30 MW should provide insights into its operation, maintenance, and control before