'Nucleus of a sustainable hydrogen economy' | East German states band together to lobby on H2 pipelines and regulations

Six German states have launched a new lobbying group, the Initiative for Hydrogen in East Germany (IWO), in an effort to push for hydrogen regulations and infrastructure to benefit the region’s industrial clusters.

Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and Thuringia — the five states that made up the former East Germany — as well as the city-state of Berlin plan to submit two proposals via the IWO to the upcoming state energy ministers’ conference in May.

“With the establishment of the new hydrogen initiative, we are pooling our efforts for this topic of the future,” said Saxony-Anhalt's state secretary for energy, Thomas Wünsch.

He added: “If the six states consistently pull together, the East can become the nucleus of a sustainable German hydrogen economy — with great opportunities for sustainable jobs, new value creation and securing our energy-intensive industry on the way to climate neutrality.”

The states in IWO currently host major chemicals and oil refining businesses, such as TotalEnergies’ Leuna refinery and Dow Chemical’s works in the so-called “Central German Chemical Triangle” in Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony.

However, installations to date have lagged behind states in Germany’s northwest and southeast.

Mecklenburg-West Pommerania meanwhile ranks third in the country with 23MW of green hydrogen projects, making it the leader within eastern Germany.

But while nearly 2.8GW of planned projects by 2030 will be located in the east German state, this is still outpaced by an announced 3.8GW in the northwestern state of Lower Saxony by that year.

The German federal government has announced plans for a 9,700km “core network” of hydrogen pipelines linking up supply and demand between different states, which is scheduled to be fully operational by 2032.

This includes a connection between the Central German Chemical Triangle and Salzgitter in Lower Saxony.