Ostend Declaration | Wind, Hydrogen & Ammonia for UK and Europe

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Big announcements in my world now which it might be of interest to the community have I tried to unpick and explain the significance of the first was the Ostend declaration announced yesterday.

The Belgian port hosted nine European countries including, significantly, the UK. The summit marks a determination to double the amount of offshore wind in both the North Sea primarily and also beyond encompassing Island and the Atlantic as well with significance for the southwest of England, west of Scotland and of course, Ireland.

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Ostend is an involved party and progressing the world’s first commercial-scale green-hydrogen plant to be powered solely by surplus offshore wind energy with a trio of Belgian companies. Offshore engineer DEME, Flanders-focused financier PMV along with the port plan to build a 50MW demonstration project — set to be the world’s largest electrolyser plant — before completing an even bigger, commercial-scale unit in 2025.

It's easy to announce such a dramatic increase in what has been a certainly for the UK and now Germany a successful sector it's good news of course for those that supply the infrastructure for the turbine manufacturers, Siemens and investors and others, also for the for the vessels for the construction and for the supply chain itself.

The investment required to ensure the North Sea wind energy targets are met is huge – the EU recently calculated €800bn would be needed to reach 300GW by 2050. The North Sea is a big place we saw Norway announce a big leasing aspiration at the end of last week, encompassing both fixed foundation and floating. I'd be minded not to determine which goals were as the Norwegians have because fixed foundations are getting deeper than previously and with the ‘rule of 30’ set aside. Floating foundations, of which there are many types are also getting into shallower waters.

 

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I'm not sure why the Norwegians want to designate which technology goes where our Crown Estate in the UK is perhaps more pragmatic, and just saying, ‘you are the developers, you know how to develop that you decide and enable the planners to make an informed decision’.

Further challenges remain, ones any sector facing a quantum growth would like to face around how to deliver it. Are there enough vessels?  Is the grid in place? What about hydrogen? How will that be done?

 

The bigger picture involves ports and ammonia. Ammonia is caustic and should be kept away from people, however it can carry four times as much hydrogen as hydrogen.  One of the projects announced this week is a floating wind to ammonia or ‘power to x’ proposal and support by the Dutch government.  I'll be tracking progress.

One final news item involves the sectoral experts’ group this week passed three thousand members; Feel free to join:  

 

         Offshore Wind and Hydrogen