As we shared in an earlier post this week, hydrogen as an energy carrier shows quite a bit of promise and energy companies across the globe are looking for “green” ways to produce it.

An Upstream Energy Explored article, World’s first offshore green hydrogen project on working platform shares a novel way of using an existing offshore oil & gas platform to produce hydrogen and transport it in existing pipelines.

Emerson along with a consortium of other companies joined this pilot project sponsored by Netherlands Enterprise Agency including Nel Hydrogen, InVesta, Hatenboer, IV-Offshore & Energy, Nexstep, TNO, Neptune, Gasunie, Noordgastransport, NOGAT, DEME Offshore, Taqa and Eneco. These companies will work with Neptune Energy on this project expected to take two to three years to complete.

This pilot project chose an offshore platform, which:

… is already fully electrified using green electricity.

How is this green electricity produced?

Electricity generated by offshore wind turbines will power the hydrogen plant on the platform, converting seawater into demineralised water, then into hydrogen via electrolysis. The aim is to gain experience of integrating working energy systems at sea and the production of hydrogen in an offshore environment.

Green hydrogen will be produced from an electrolyzer using the green electricity to split water into its hydrogen and oxygen components. Once the hydrogen is produced, the:

…green hydrogen will be mixed with the naturalgas and transported via the existing gas pipeline to the coast. The 1-megawatt electrolyser will produce a maximum of 400 kilogrammes of green hydrogen per day.

Emerson’s Jan Kik shared with me that with our automation technology, we will play a key role in managing this production process given the variability of the electricity source. A full range of control, safety and asset management systems and measurement devices will be required as part of this effort.

We are honored to gain valuable experiences during the 2-year test period. This experience will help to convince relations who are exploring the road towards the use of Sustainable and Renewable Energy.

Visit the Environmental, Social and Governance section on Emerson.com for more on ways Emerson technology and solutions are helping manufacturers and producers drive their sustainability initiatives.