Page 5 - EurOil Week 37 2021

EurOil COMMENTARY EurOil

Social Democrat
leader Olaf Scholz is
the favourite in the
upcoming elections.

inferior products to green hydrogen, produced German company VNG jointly invested in UK
from water using renewable energy-powered startup HiiROC, which has developed a pyrol-
electrolysis. ysis technology. The partners said at the time
Speaking this week, Wintershall Dea CEO that HiiROC’s process was far more efficient and
Mario Mehren urged Berlin to adopt a “technol- effective than conventional methods, and could
ogy-open approach” to hydrogen. prove “a real gamechanger” for hydrogen pro-
“We have a chicken and egg problem here: duction costs.
there is no market without hydrogen produc- Wintershall Dea has also been researching
tion, and the industry won’t switch to new pyrolysis with the Karlruhe Institute of Technol-
technologies if there aren’t sufficient volumes,” ogy since 2019.
he said. “Establishing a hydrogen market is an The company, with VNG, took another
enormous project. The energy sector and indus- step in August, announcing their intention
try face a transformation that will require huge to build a pilot turquoise hydrogen plant in
investments” east Germany using HiiROC’s technology.
Germany aspires to become one of the world’s The facility is due online in 2023 and will
biggest hydrogen markets, under a government have a nominal capacity of 400 kg of hydro-
strategy announced last year. But that strategy gen daily – equivalent to output of almost 5
is heavily skewed in favour of green hydrogen, GWh per year.
envisaging the deployment of 5 GW of hydro- Germany’s government has not signalled it
gen-producing electrolyser capacity by 2030 and will consider its position on gas-based hydro-
double that amount by 2040. gen. But there will be a new government after
It will take considerable time for green hydro- the Bundestag elections due to take place later
gen costs to fall to a similar level to gas-derived this month – and that is who Wintershall Dea
hydrogen. And critics of the strategy say more of and other supporters of gas-based hydrogen are
the latter is needed to create a market ready for trying to convince.
when the former becomes sufficiently competi- The conservative bloc currently led by Chan-
tive and widely available. cellor Angela Merkel, but which has put CDU
To ensure that this market emerges, Mehren leader Armin Laschet on the new ticket, is cur-
called for Germany to have “a technolo- rently trailing in the polls. The centre-left Social
gy-open approach that includes all forms of cli- Democrats led by Olaf Scholz are at present in
mate-friendly hydrogen production.” the lead.
“As long as green hydrogen is not available Wintershall Dea’s Mehren also stressed the
in sufficient volumes and at attractive prices, we need for Germany to embrace CCS to decarbon-
also need hydrogen from natural gas in order to ise difficult-to-abate industries.
establish the market quickly,” he said. “It’s my “We in Germany must not simply spurn the
conviction that green hydrogen will benefit from possibilities CCS offers. Countries like Norway,
a mature market in the long term.” Denmark and the Netherlands are already ahead
in the field of CCS and have created the techni-
Steps taken cal and statutory conditions for it,” he said. “We
Wintershall Dea is already acting on its faith should start an open, constructive and transpar-
in turquoise hydrogen. In April, it and another ent dialogue on CCS in Germany.” ™

Week 37 16•September•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P5