Coal replacement? | German utility plans 1.2GW blue hydrogen plant at Port of Rotterdam
Onyx Power wants to produce H2 from fossil gas at its Rotterdam site, where it currently runs a 715MW coal-fired power station that has to close by 2030
German utility Onyx Power wants to build a 1.2GW blue hydrogen project on the site of its existing coal-fired power station in the Port of Rotterdam, apparently in a bid to keep the site productive when it is forced to close the power station.
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The announcement comes amid two years of negotiations with the Dutch government over the coal-fired power plant, which Amsterdam has said it wants to close ahead of its 2030 ban on all coal-fired power stations in the Netherlands.
The site, on the man-made Maasvlakte peninsula in the Port of Rotterdam, is in the “immediate vicinity” of existing infrastructure and end users, it added.
Carbon produced by the plant would be captured and stored in depleted offshore gas fields — presumably in the Dutch North Sea — which Onyx claims would save around 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
Onyx, which is owned by New York-based investment fund Riverstone, will now carry out an environmental impact assessment on the blue hydrogen proposal, but has not said how the project will be funded.
“Using the same infrastructure and production technologies, the industry can gradually move from blue to green hydrogen as the energy transition progresses,” the company said. “In this way, blue hydrogen contributes to the roll-out of green hydrogen.”
Onyx has been locked in protracted negotiations with the Dutch government over when to close the 731MW Rotterdam coal-fired power plant, which was only commissioned in 2015.
All four of the Netherlands’ remaining coal-fired power plants must close by 2030 by law, but the government has said it is keen to close one significantly earlier in order to help the country meet its emissions reductions targets.
In November 2021, Onyx agreed to shut the plant within a few months, in exchange for a €212.5m ($232m) compensation payment from the government — but then pulled out of the deal shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, which turned European electricity markets on their head.
The Dutch government expressed disappointment at the time, but has since removed the cap on total coal-fired production in the country until 2023, in order to shore up supply when gas prices became prohibitively high.
Earlier this year grid operator TenneT warned that the 2030 fossil fuel phase-out on the power network could result in energy shortages.