Supplier E.ON has invested €5 million (£4.3m) into a plant in Northern Germany where it aims to convert the power generated from wind farms into hydrogen. This could then be stored in the country’s gas grid, solving issues of intermittency and storage.

Professor Klaus-Dieter Maubach, a member of the E.ON AG Board of Management responsible for Technology & Development said: “We need new storage capacities so that we can further increase the share of weather-dependent wind power in our generation portfolio in coming years. Using the existing gas infrastructure to store hydrogen is a promising approach in the long run, enabling us to combine our strengths as a power and gas company.”

E.ON aim to produce about 360m³ of hydrogen per hour through electrolysis from 2013. The hydrogen will be fed into the Ontras gas pipeline system and be used like normal natural gas. This would allow the gas grid to act as a storage system for power from weather-dependent renewables.