Does the production of hydrogen at sea using offshore wind turbines raise safety and security issues? The report by Deloitte’s Clean Hydrogen Partnership (CHP), published in mid-April 2023, predicts that half of European hydrogen demand will come from port areas by 2050. A success coupled with a challenge for the European Hydrogen Ports Network.
The conference “Energy Independence: How to Ensure the Safety of Offshore Wind Farms?” organized with the Institute of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies, the Center for Strategic Studies of the Navy and energiesdelamer.eu. was held in January 2023. On this occasion, MerVeille Énergie #12 studied the risks associated with the hydrogen sector, which is set to experience strong growth. According to Jean-Claude Lewandowski, editor-in-chief of MerVeille Énergie, security issues are emerging because the production and storage of this gas will most often take place within port infrastructure and ultimately in the same environment as wind electricity. Some players are also considering producing decarbonized hydrogen directly with electricity produced at sea.
Specific risks
Linked to the very nature of hydrogen, and as Ineris (National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks) points out, “Hydrogen is a highly flammable, very reactive gas that needs to be brought to high pressure to be stored and transported in economically viable conditions.”
The risks of leaks are also real. Phenomena of embrittlement of the metals of the pipes have been observed. An inspection report commissioned by the government and published in 2022 also recommends “taking into account the safety dimension in industrial projects that emerge around hydrogen.”
Still according to the same Ineris report mentioned in MVE#12: “No one can predict today the evolution of electricity prices (and therefore the cost of producing hydrogen by electrolysis) in the coming years, nor at what rate the “massification” of the manufacturing of equipment (electrolysers, fuel cells, tanks, etc.) will allow costs to be reduced.”
Many ports affected
The ports of Le Havre, Nantes Saint-Nazaire, partner of the Sealhyfe demonstrator, Marseille, Dunkirk are engaged in this process as well as the future and innovative port of Qair in the Occitanie region at Port-la-Nouvelle, which aims to be both that of floating wind power and, in the long term, that of green hydrogen, when the manufacture of floating wind farms in the Mediterranean will have moved from the installation stage to activity.
The port of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire in Montoir-de-Bretagne
A call for expressions of interest was launched in November 2022 for the provision of land located at the heart of the industrial and logistics port ecosystem, in Montoir-de-Bretagne, to host a project to set up an industrial production activity for renewable hydrogen. In this context, Lhyfe will build an industrial unit with a production capacity of 85 tonnes per day of green and renewable hydrogen (installed electrolysis capacity of 210 MW) to the north of the multi-bulk terminal. This site should be completed in 2028. This project will contribute to the decarbonization of the industrial-port complex and maritime transport. It is consistent with the action program for the development of a ZIBaC (Low Carbon Industrial Zone), led by the Association of Loire Estuaire Industrialists (AILE), Saint-Nazaire Agglomeration, the Estuaire et Sillon Community of Communes and the Pays de la Loire Region.
Safety, a common cause
Hydrogen, offshore wind farms and port facilities are and will therefore be increasingly linked. In a way, they are a common cause, including in terms of safety. From this point of view, the precise identification of the responsibilities of the State, operators and manufacturers is important, whether for rescuing people, managing accidents, public order or environmental damage.
Excerpt from the survey published in the quarterly MerVeille Énergie #12, https://www.energiesdelamer.eu/merveille-energie/
You can watch or rewatch the conference “Energy independence: how to ensure the safety of offshore wind farms?” on energiesdelamer.eu.
