- After winning EU backing, Uniper’s operations head said the company would focus on talks to develop hydrogen storage facilities this year.
- Uniper’s long-term strategy includes turning all its natural gas activities to hydrogen to reach climate goals and supply customers.
German utility Uniper’s operations head said the company will focus on talks to develop hydrogen storage facilities this year after winning EU backing for two clean energy projects at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven.
However, the state-owned company wants to turn the deep water port into a reception point for ammonia-carrying imported hydrogen and store and transport it as part of its decarbonisation strategy.
“This year, we want to make concrete progress with (steelmaker) Salzgitter and intensively push forward our projects,” Chief Operating Officer Holger Kreetz said in an interview at a Handelsblatt conference.
Also, the European Commission selected Uniper‘s ammonia terminal and a plan for a 1 gigawatt (GW) electrolysis plant to produce H2 from local renewable power last month as Projects of Common Interest (PCI). “Being on the PCI list brings advantages for planning and speeding up our projects,” Kreetz said.
Uniper‘s long-term strategy includes turning all its natural gas activities to hydrogen to reach climate goals and supply customers. Its former focus, Russian gas, dried up in 2022, and the company had to be bailed out by the German government.
Likewise, to cut emissions from steelmaking, Salzgitter and Uniper announced in April that they would cooperate on delivering up to 20,000 metric tons of green hydrogen per year to Salzgitter’s plant. A pipeline from Wilhelmshaven has yet to be built for this. Green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy.
Kreetz said Salzgitter’s hydrogen will come from Uniper’s electrolysis plant, a 200-megawatt section that will come online in 2028. Furthermore, Uniper’s hydrogen storage strategy aims to offer 600 gigawatt hours (GWh) of capacity by the end of 2030, with the company re-purposing some of its gas storage caverns and building new sites.