Russia aims to have its first 'experimental' green hydrogen project up and running by June
Tiny scheme on island of Sakhalin is already taking delivery of equipment — and has the blessing of Vladimir Putin
A tiny demonstration project billed as Russia’s first green hydrogen installation is expected to be up and running on the far-eastern island of Sakhalin by the end of June, according to information attributed to the regional government.
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Backed with funds from the federal government, a new “Hydrogen Engineering Centre” in Sakhalin will be located at the Special Design Bureau for Automation Equipment for Marine Research (SKB SAMI) research institute.
The centre will house an “experimental” green hydrogen installation built with Russian-made equipment, powered with 30kW of solar PV.
“The Sakhalin hydrogen test site is the first site of its kind in Russia. The island region won the right to implement a pilot project for the development of hydrogen energy, which was initiated by Russian president Vladimir Putin,” the press notice said.
“If the experiment is successful, in a few years a hydrogen plant will be launched and the export of clean fuel to countries of the Asia-Pacific region.”
The blue hydrogen project, meanwhile, is part-owned by state-backed Russian gas company Gazprom, which started work on the project before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but has since been sanctioned by Western governments, and has seen its commissioning date pushed back by three years.
“The hydrogen cluster will ensure the technological independence of the Russian Federation in the field of hydrogen and low-carbon technologies, the scaling of these technologies and access to the export of hydrogen and related products to the Asia-Pacific countries,” said Denis Manturov, following the January meeting.
But any electrolysis project on the island would not be green unless it sourced 100% of its power from dedicated renewables capacity, one analyst warned.
"The produced hydrogen can become green if the electricity comes only from renewables, not from the grid, otherwise, it will be grey,“ said Yury Melnikov, who works as an expert within the hydrogen taskforce at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. “Electricity in the Sakhalin Island’s power grid is 100% generated from natural gas and coal.”