bp and Ørsted to build green hydrogen project at German oil refinery

A 50MW electrolyser will be powered by an offshore ‎wind farm in the North Sea and the hydrogen produced will be used in the refinery

bp has announced it will work with the Danish renewable energy group Ørsted to build a green hydrogen project at its Lingen refinery in North-West Germany.

The plan is to develop a 50MW electrolyser, which will be powered by renewable energy generated by an Ørsted offshore ‎wind farm in the North Sea – the hydrogen produced will be used in the refinery.‎

The project, which is expected to be operational by 2024, is predicted to produce one tonne of green ‎hydrogen per hour, totalling 9,000 tonnes a year.

That amount is expected to be sufficient to replace around 20% of ‎the refinery’s current grey hydrogen consumption, avoiding around 80,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year, which is equivalent to the emissions from around 45,000 cars.

Grey hydrogen is when hydrogen is produced by reforming natural gas, a process that results in carbon dioxide emissions.

Dev Sanyal, bp’s Executive Vice President for Gas and Low Carbon, said: “Bringing together Ørsted ‎and bp, Lingen Green Hydrogen offers the opportunity both to accelerate significant ‎emissions reduction in our refinery and build experience of large-scale green hydrogen ‎production and deployment.”

Martin Neubert, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of Offshore Wind for Ørsted, added: “Heavy industries such as refineries use large quantities of hydrogen in their manufacturing ‎processes.

“They will continue to need hydrogen, but replacing the current fossil-based ‎hydrogen with hydrogen produced from renewable energy can help these industries ‎dramatically lower their carbon footprint.”

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