2023-11-08 20:05:40
Franco-German industrial cooperation in the field of energy is an event these days. An eminently political subject too, given the bickering between the two countries over nuclear power.
The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was keen in any case to attend the inauguration in Berlin, Wednesday November 8, of the first European gigafactory for the manufacture of electrolysers, created by Air Liquide and Siemens Energy, as part of their company common. On the French side, Roland Lescure, the Minister of Industry, made the trip.
A technology adapted to the intermittency of renewables
Installed on the historic Siemens Energy site in the German capital, where gas turbines are still produced, it will manufacture “stacks”, the modules in which the membranes are located.
This is the central element of electrolysers, which, using an electric current, separates hydrogen from the oxygen contained in water. Fully robotized, the factory has a production capacity of 1 GW, which could be gradually increased to 3 GW by 2025, depending on orders. The investment is 30 million euros, financed 75% by Siemens and 25% by Air Liquide.
“It is the largest electrolyzer factory in the world using PEM technology (proton exchange membrane, Editor’s note)which is the most advanced and best suited to the intermittency of renewable energies », says François Jackow, CEO of Air Liquide. According to him, the group chose to partner with Siemens Energy, given its technical skills and its ability to master large-scale industrial production.
Four gigafactories planned in France
Everything goes pretty quickly in the end. Most EU states launched massive hydrogen plans in 2020. By the time the projects are set up and state aid is validated, the first projects are starting to emerge. “We are finally moving from the concept phase to that of industrial realities”assures Armelle Levieux, Air Liquide’s director of innovation.
In 2016, Air Liquide inaugurated a first 2 MW electrolyzer in Denmark. In 2019, it launched the construction of a 20 MW model in Canada, presented then as the largest in the world. In 2026, it should commission Normand’Hy, a 200 MW electrolyser, in the industrial zone of Port-Jérôme, near Le Havre, which will be composed of modules manufactured in Berlin. It will be the largest in the world.
In France, four electrolyzer gigafactories are planned, including that of McPhy, which is due to open in Belfort in the first half of 2024. Elogen is due to lay the first stone of its Vendôme factory in the coming weeks and Genvia has already launched a pilot line manufacturing in June, in Béziers. The Belgian John Cockerill, for his part, plans to build a unit in Alsace.
Multiple needs
Demand is starting to arrive from manufacturers. “Green hydrogen has an essential role to play in the energy transition, because it makes it possible to decarbonize uses that cannot be done otherwise”underlines Armelle Levieux.
This gas has, in fact, numerous functions. It is used in refineries to reduce the sulfur content of fuels, in chemistry for the manufacture of fertilizers or in electronics, to assemble components, and increasingly in the future in blast furnaces to produce steel.
Hydrogen is also another way to decarbonize transport, such as trucks, where batteries are less relevant.
Orders are arriving
“We have 1.8 GW of electrolyzer orders”, underlines Anne-Laure de Chammard, executive vice-president of Siemens Energy. For its part, Air Liquide plans to have 3GW of electrolyzers in 2030. Besides Normand’Hy, it has two projects in the Benelux of similar size.
Today, 95% of its 1.3 million tonnes of hydrogen produced per year are called “gray”, because they come from natural gas. The objective is to reach 50% “green” hydrogen, produced by electrolysis, in 2030. “Our customers are ready, even if we still need to improve the regulatory framework and provide subsidies to start the dynamic”believes François Jackow.
In the coming weeks, Air Liquide will commission a 20 MW electrolyzer, installed in Oberhausen, in the heart of the Ruhr, to supply 3,000 tonnes per year of green hydrogen to its customers in the chemical or energy industries. steel, which it already supplies with gray hydrogen, thanks to a network of 240 kilometers of pipelines. This should represent around 15% of production.
Lower costs
For the moment, green hydrogen is between 2 and 2.3 times more expensive than gray. But the two prices should come together, Air Liquide managers believe, with both the expected increase in the cost of carbon and the hoped-for drop in the price of renewable energies.
The Oberhausen electrolyser could also schedule its production at times when electrons are cheapest, that is to say at night and in the middle of the day. The price of electricity represents 70% of the operating cost of an electrolyzer.
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