McDermott, Van Oord Join AquaVentus Offshore Wind-to-Hydrogen Project

The AquaVentus offshore wind-to-hydrogen project has informed that another ten members have joined the German initiative since the beginning of May, this time also including companies outside Europe.

Japanese utility J-Power (Electric Power Development) and the Japanese-Swiss joint venture Hitachi ABB Power are the new members of the AquaVentus consortium, as is the US offshore engineering and construction services player McDermott, which has been doing business mainly in the oil and gas sector so far.

The giant offshore wind-to-hydrogen project has also attracted Van Oord Offshore Wind Germany, a German arm of the Dutch offshore construction company Van Oord, among several other businesses from different industries.

The AquaVentus initiative, which is behind a massive project revolving around green hydrogen production powered by 10 GW of offshore wind from the North Sea, has already saw several major names from the offshore energy sector joining the project.

This includes developers such as Ørsted, Equinor, and WindMW, while Shell, RWE, GASCADE, and Gasunie have been part of AquaVentus from the start.

AquaVentus comprises numerous sub-projects along the value chain from the production of hydrogen in the North Sea to transport to customers on the mainland. 

The projects include the development of offshore wind farms with integrated hydrogen generation (AquaPrimus), a large-scale offshore hydrogen park (AquaSector), a central supply pipeline (AquaDuctus), port infrastructures (AquaPortus), a research platform (AquaCampus), and hydrogen-based maritime applications (AquaNavis).

Under the first sub-project, AquaPrimus, the consortium plans to install two 14 MW wind turbines, each with an electrolyser plant on its foundation platform. The wind turbines would be installed off the coast of Heligoland by 2025.

This April, project partners Shell, RWE, GASCADE, and Gasunie signed a declaration of intent to further intensify their collaboration on AquaDuctus, with a feasibility study planned as the next step for the project.