Overview

Real world labo­ra­to­ries WESTKÜSTE100 select­ed

(Heide/Berlin, 18 July 2019) At a press conference Peter Altmaier, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, announced that Westküste100 is to be one of the first real-world laboratories of the energy transition in Germany. This gives the consortium’s nine partners the chance step by step to create an industrial-scale regional hydrogen economy and make an important contribution to meeting climate protection targets.

It was good news from Berlin today for the cross-sector partnership comprising EDF Deutschland, Holcim Deutschland, Open Grid Europe, Ørsted, Raffinerie Heide, Heide’s municipal utility company and thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions – together with the Heide Region Development Agency and the FH Westküste University of Applied Sciences: the Westküste100 project will be one of the economics ministry’s few “real-world laboratories of the energy transition” and, through its initiatives, it will help accelerate the transfer of technology and innovation from research to practice. Westküste100 thus becomes one of a series of projects to receive funding under the ENTREE100 initiative. Others include CAMPUS100, QUARREE100 und KEROSyN100.

The project received special support from the Schleswig-Holstein state government. In the decision-making phase, state premier Daniel Günther and members of his cabinet repeatedly pointed out the innovativeness of this project in Germany’s most northerly state as well as its huge benefits for Germany’s transition to renewable energies. “With the planned real-world laboratory, unused electricity from wind energy will be converted into green hydrogen and utilised. The west coast is the optimum site for this innovative facility.  As an energy transition champion, Schleswig-Holstein can benefit particularly from the real-world laboratory,” stated Daniel Günther.

At the heart of the project work is the joint vision of a comprehensive cross-sector partnership – from the generation of green electricity to the production of synthetic hydrocarbons, including the utilisation of heat.

The partners aim to make an active contribution to the transition to renewables and drive decarbonisation forward. In the coming weeks the consortium will prepare a project description based on the proposal outline to pave the way for work to begin at the start of 2020.

“With this result we’ve moved a big step closer to our goal to make flying, building and heating more sustainable in the future,” said Jürgen Wollschläger, project coordinator and managing director of Raffinerie Heide. “The Westküste100 partners are delighted with all the institutions and associations that gave their backing to our real-world laboratory project and will continue to back it in future.”

Background: The Westküste100 real-world laboratory project

The Westküste 100 research and development project aims to produce green hydrogen from offshore wind energy and utilise the waste heat generated in the process. The green hydrogen will then be used to produce climate-friendly aviation fuels and also fed into gas grids. Unavoidable CO2 from a regional cement plant in Schleswig-Holstein will be used in the fuel manufacturing process.

Contact for queries: Christoph Lapczyna | PLÜCOM

Tel. +49 40 790 21 89 90, cl@pluecom.de

Consent Management Platform by Real Cookie Banner