Dutch Gov’t Backs Offshore Wind-Connected Floating Hydrogen and Ammonia Facility with EUR 3 Million

April 25, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

The Dutch government has awarded a EUR 3 million grant to BW Offshore, SwitcH2, MARIN, TU Delft, and Strohm to develop a floating hydrogen and/or ammonia production and storage facility which will be connected to an offshore wind farm.

SwitcH2 render of floating hydrogen and ammonia facility with offshore wind turbines; Image courtesy of SwitcH2

The project, named OFFSET, involves building an industrial-scale floating green hydrogen and ammonia facility based on the proven concept of floating production and offloading vessel (FPSO).

Planned to be linked with an adjacent wind farm by 2027, the facility will produce hydrogen that can be transported to shore through existing oil and gas pipelines or newly installed Thermoplastic Composite Pipe (TCP), while the produced ammonia can be transported to end-users by shuttle tankers.

According to the project consortium, the large-scale production of green hydrogen faces challenges in intermittent energy supply, transmission of electricity, and high-quality water supply for the electrolysis process. This can be addressed with a floating facility which would use seawater as feed for the electrolysis process, support the production of electricity at the right moment and right location, and produce offshore green hydrogen or ammonia.

Last month, SwitcH2 and BW Offshore announced that the facility secured Approval in Principle (AiP) from DNV, which affirmed the technical feasibility of the design and enabled the project to start the basic design phase.

Within the OFFSET project consortium, SwitcH2 is the developer and will coordinate the overall programme, while BW Offshore is responsible for the topside arrangement, hull, and mooring system design.

TU Delft will lead the research into the direct use of seawater in the electrolysis process and develop a seawater electrolysis process via the implementation of improved electrocatalysts.

Strohm will supply its proprietary non-corrosive Thermoplastic Composite Pipe technology for hydrogen storage and offloading.

“Flexible and delivered in long lengths on reels in a fast-track operation, TCP can transfer up to nine times the amount of energy compared to a cable, and can be used to store hydrogen, increasing the uptime of offshore wind farms”, said Caroline Justet, VP for Europe at Strohm.

The Dutch test centre MARIN will provide its wave basins for the hydrodynamic performance tests of the scale model of the final design.

In a press release issued on 25 April, the consortium said it would also actively involve stakeholders from different sectors in the project, such as energy companies, wind farm operators and developers, as well as energy-intensive industry sectors as potential future off-takers.

The OFFSET project was selected to receive the EUR 3 million grant by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) under the MOOI scheme (Missiegedregen Onderzoek en Ontwikkeling – Mission driven Research and Development).