Nine months after the groundbreaking ceremony for RWE’s hydrogen pilot plant, the first electrolysis blocks for hydrogen production have arrived at the construction site of the Emsland gas-fired power plant.

Lingen, March 30, 2023 | Within four days, eight blocks of a 10 MW pressurized alkaline electrolyzer from Sunfire rolled onto the RWE site on semi-trailers. A gantry crane on rails lifted the components, each weighing 15 tons, to their destination in a specially built hall. There, four blocks are assembled into stacks nearly ten meters long.

In the coming weeks, technicians will install the 10 MW pressurized alkaline plant and integrate it into the infrastructure of the Emsland gas-fired power plant. Sunfire’s electrolyzer is expected to be operational this fall. It can produce up to 200 kilograms of green hydrogen per hour using renewable electricity.

The renewable gas will be fed into a public hydrogen network or used as a climate-neutral fuel for the turbines of the gas-fired power plant. In the future, it could also supply the mobility market and the hydrogen-capable gas turbine RWE and Kawasaki plan to build in Lingen. The state of Lower Saxony is funding the project with EUR 8 million.

Sopna Sury, COO Hydrogen RWE Generation, says: “Following months of preliminary work, it is exciting for everyone to see the pilot plant taking shape. With the arrival of the first electrolyzer, we have come another step closer to our goal of producing green hydrogen. Once it has been commissioned, the Lingen plant will help us to build up experience with two technologies for the subsequent operation of large-scale electrolyzers.”

“We are proud to be implementing one of our first commercial projects with our partner RWE,” said Nils Aldag, CEO of Sunfire. “Our electrolysis technologies enable industrial customers to produce the green hydrogen they need to defossilize their energy-intensive processes. We have recently started industrial serial production of alkaline electrolyzers at our site in Solingen, Germany – the cornerstone for many other industrial-scale hydrogen projects.

RWE’s Lingen site plays a key role in the company’s hydrogen strategy: As part of the GET H2 project, RWE plans to build its first large-scale electrolysis plant a few meters from the Sunfire electrolyzer. Its capacity is to be expanded in 100 MW steps to 300 MW by 2026. The goal of GET H2 is to build a trans-regional hydrogen infrastructure with partners. Sunfire is participating in the GET H2 project with its innovative high-temperature electrolysis, which is known for its particularly high efficiency.

Image: © RWE