AMSTERDAM: ITM Power, the energy storage and clean fuel company, announced the opening of Gasunie’s Hystock green hydrogen plant in Veendam near Groningen in the Netherlands.
Gasunie manages and maintains the infrastructure for the large-scale transport and storage of gas in the Netherlands and the northern part of Germany.
ITM Power supplied the 1MW PEM electrolyser system which will use renewable energy and water to generate hydrogen. The electrolyser is located at Energy Stock’s Zuidwending salt cavern storage facility in northern Netherlands, and the generated hydrogen will be either used on-site or dispensed into tube trailers for supply to future hydrogen refuelling stations.
Prof Roger Putnam CBE, Chairman of ITM Power, who attended the ceremony, commented: “Hydrogen is a key element in the transition to a fully renewable energy system; we now need immediate political and industry action to accelerate the adoption of renewable hydrogen.”
Han Fennema, CEO Gasunie said, “The HyStock hydrogen plant is the first specific step towards really making an effort to achieve the required further growth in the use of sustainable hydrogen throughout the chain, from production to usage. We will be able to make part of our existing infrastructure suitable for the transport and storage of hydrogen by 2030. This sustainable reuse of the existing gas network will help to keep our energy supply reliable and affordable.”
Since large-scale transport and storage of hydrogen is expected to be easy, reliable and affordable, hydrogen can play a key role as a clean energy carrier for manufacturing, mobility and the built environment. Converting electricity into hydrogen is a way of using the expected future surpluses of sustainable electricity. HyStock is the start of the future hydrogen market and therefore helps to achieve the goal of making the Netherlands and Europe carbon-neutral.