(Hemmingstedt, April 7, 2021) In mid-March 2021, the WESTKÜSTE100 project received funding of 6.5 million euros from the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) to expand and reinforce a cavern.
The BMWi is thus funding another important element of the WESTKÜSTE100 real-world laboratory project. Hydrogen is set to be stored in a cavern not far from the refinery site in the future in order to convert the available wind energy into a continuous stream of hydrogen for industrial use. Caverns close to the refinery in Hemmingstedt are currently already used to store government reserves of oil and fuels. With the funding to turn the cavern into a hydrogen storage facility, the cross-industry partnership involving Hynamics Deutschland, Holcim Deutschland, OGE, Ørsted Deutschland, Raffinerie Heide, Stadtwerke Heide, Thüga und thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions – together with the Region Heide development agency and the Westküste University of Applied Sciences – has reached another important milestone for making an active contribution to the energy transition and furthering decarbonisation efforts.
Background: The ‘WESTKÜSTE100 real-world laboratory’ project
The idea behind the WESTKÜSTE100 project is to create a regional hydrogen economy on an industrial scale in Schleswig-Holstein. At the heart of the project is the research and development approach focused on producing green hydrogen from offshore wind energy and using the waste heat and oxygen that are generated in the process. The green hydrogen is then set to be used to produce environmentally friendly fuels for aircraft and fed into the gas grid to supply heat. Hydrogen from electrolysis and unavoidable CO2 from regional cement production in Schleswig-Holstein is used in the fuel manufacturing process.
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