Brief profile
As the global market leader in offshore wind power production, Ørsted has also offshore wind farms in Germany. With an installed capacity of some 1.4 gigawatts, an equivalent of 1.4 million German households can be supplied with renewable electricity. At least a further 1.2 GW are planned by 2025 in the German North Sea. The green electricity produced offshore provides sufficient energy to power the electrolysis to produce hydrogen. As a co-owner of the electrolysis system, Ørsted will participate in developing dynamically optimised operational management with the aim of producing hydrogen as cost-effectively as possible. Once the electrolysis system has been successfully implemented in the existing refinery, this will pave the way, in a second stage, for the large-scale production and use of green hydrogen and derived products in the Heide region.
Long-term vision
Offshore wind power holds the key to green hydrogen production on an industrial scale. No other renewable energy source can provide such reliably large quantities of green electricity for electrolysis. To be able to produce appropriate volumes of green hydrogen, the expansion of renewables and offshore wind power in particular must be aligned with the increased demand associated with hydrogen production. The flexible production of green hydrogen so close to the landfall points of offshore wind power will in addition alleviate the pressure on the electricity networks.