Sif, GE, and Pondera Team Up on Off-Grid Offshore Wind-to-Hydrogen Project

Sif Group, representing KCI the engineers, GE Renewable Energy, and Pondera have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the feasibility study of AmpHytrite – a green hydrogen centralized offshore wind production project.

The AmpHytrite project is aimed at mastering the complexity of a centralized offshore and off-grid hydrogen production unit and is aiming for a staged construction and operation of this green hydrogen offshore wind production unit.

The ultimate objective of the project would be to contribute to affordable large-scale green hydrogen production at sea, thereby supporting decarbonization and accelerating the energy transition, the partners said.

Should the outcome of the study be viable, the realization of the AmpHytrite demonstrator will preferably be placed at Sif’s Maasvlakte 2 terminal in the Port of Rotterdam, taking into account all current and future safety perimeters.

The Maasvlakte 2 terminal enables the unit to be deployed in a safe manner without impacting Sif’s core business and possible future expansions. The demonstrator is planned for operational use and testing by 2023.

The project scope, which is designed to simulate the complexity of having a centralized green hydrogen unit operating offshore and off-grid, would examine the end-to-end process: from the green electrons provided by the wind tuebine to the required offtake profile for the onshore hydrogen customer.

In doing so, the MoU would permit the parties to put in place a demonstration project to validate that a full commercial offshore, off-grid centralized green hydrogen windfarm project could be feasible.

The MoU envisions that the project will have three phases. Phase one would involve a concept study in which project teams of KCI, Sif, Pondera, and GE Renewable Energy carry out a feasibility study of offshore, off-grid centralized green hydrogen production.

During the second phase, envisioned to be operational by 2023, a small-scale onshore unit at Sif’s Maasvlakte 2 terminal is foreseen to be installed, solely powered by the GE Haliade-X turbine on site, as if being offshore and off-grid.

The objective of this phase would be to develop and construct a smaller version of the main phase as proof of concept, taking on the full complexity of offshore and off-grid operation, whilst being installed onshore at the Sif terminal.

The third phase would involve scaling up the concept to a total wind farm size at full scale, offshore and off-grid, using the tested technology of phase 2.

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