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New hub for the hydrogen industry in NRW

© shutterstock.com | riekephotos

© shutterstock.com | riekephotos

Green hydrogen will be needed in large quantities in the future – principally in industry, but the energy carrier can also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. Because demand is so great, some of the hydrogen will have to be imported. The DeltaPort Lower Rhine Ports (DPN) offer the best conditions for this. They are located on the strategically important inland waterway route along the Rhine with direct access to the state's most important industrial sites. That is why "EcoPort813 - Förderverein Wasserstoff & nachhaltige Energie e.V." (Hydrogen & Sustainable Energy Promotion Association), newly founded in September, has set out to make the ports a central hub for the hydrogen economy.

The eleven founding members have a common vision: Green hydrogen from regions with particularly favorable conditions for renewable energies is to arrive by ship in the port of Rotterdam in the future and be transported from there up the Rhine to NRW – either as pure H2 or in combination with ammonia. The energy carrier could then be landed at the DPN sites in Wesel, Voerde-Emmelsum, Rheinberg-Orsoy and Emmerich and transported from there to the customers.

The project is intended not only to drive forward the energy transition, but also to contribute to structural change in the region and to create new jobs. Hydrogen can help strengthen industry and create new value chains. "We are pooling the economic resources needed for transformation and the know-how from the fields of logistics, the energy industry, and research and development," sums up Klaus-Peter Ehrlich-Schnelting of H2 PEG, one of the founding members of the association.