A maritime and industrial territory, Normandy has been committed for five years to placing hydrogen at the heart of its energy transition. This working base, supported by numerous actors in the territory, now allows it to be actively deployed, which foreshadows the hydrogen landscape of tomorrow.
The Normandy Hydrogen plan launched in 2017 was developed to strengthen the place of hydrogen in Normandy’s energy transition while structuring a real industrial sector. Its 9 objectives and 46 actions target mobility, logistics and industry, with the production of renewable hydrogen at the forefront.
Hydrogen Territory
Normandy has two large seaports, Le Havre and Rouen, and three regional ports (Dieppe, Caen-Ouistreham, Cherbourg) which have long generated numerous flows of goods and passengers, with leading logistics and transport skills. But Normandy is also an industrial region. It has skills linked to production, consumption – 350,000 tonnes/year of hydrogen consumed – and the handling of hydrogen. This maritime region also has France’s leading potential in terms of renewable marine energies. Indeed, it has natural assets (wind, biomass, etc.) conducive to the development of renewable energies and in particular hydrogen. Everything therefore comes together to make this energy an adapted response to the environmental challenges of tomorrow. This is why the Region quickly identified it as an essential lever for a successful energy transition. The Normandy Region has been a pioneer in the deployment of new uses of hydrogen by carrying out, from 2016, the EAS-HyMob project, co-financed 50% by the European Union as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). , in association with Symbio and Serfim. EAS-HyMob represents the first regional hydrogen mobility project deployed in France, bringing together at the same time the purchase of hydrogen vehicles and the necessary infrastructure. Then, the Normandy Region decided in July 2017 to develop a concerted roadmap with all the stakeholders in the federated territory: this is the Normandy Hydrogen plan voted in October 2018.
Plan d’action
The Normandy Hydrogen plan is based on several pillars: decarbonizing the regional economy by targeting the industry and logistics/transport sectors; strengthen and develop a sector that creates activity, jobs and skills; strengthen regional attractiveness. This is why the priorities of the Normandy Hydrogen plan have been deployed in the following sectors:
– the production of renewable/carbon-free hydrogen;
– industrial applications;
– the deployment of heavy hydrogen mobility, land, sea and river;
– research and training;
– awareness and acceptability of the general public.
Halfway through, the results are already very positive with 70% of the plan’s actions already undertaken, more than 40 hydrogen projects launched or in the process of being set up across the entire value chain. But this initial phase, like the first stage of the rocket, propels new actions. Thus on December 11, 2020, the Normandy Region launched, in partnership with the CCI Normandy, the “CCI business hydrogen” platform to support the establishment of the Normandy hydrogen sector. This collaborative platform has several objectives. The first is to identify the hydrogen players in Normandy across the entire value chain (from production methods to uses) and present them in the form of a map. This census will make it possible to list the Normandy ecosystem, its possible gaps and differentiating elements, and to promote the skills of the territory at different levels (regional, national, international). Following objectives: measure the state of knowledge of the subject of hydrogen among local stakeholders, stimulate a dynamic of business involvement and animate the territory through the sharing of market information, news, consultations, calls for projects in support of the national hydrogen plan and its implementation in Normandy. The platform will also facilitate networking, federation of stakeholders and project development and the organization of events and business meetings. To find out more: www.normandie.ccibusiness.fr/hydrogene. Registration is free and any actor, Norman or not, can be listed!
Immediate takeoff!
The signing of a partnership agreement with ArianeGroup on March 19 in Vernon should this time literally get the Normandy hydrogen rocket off the ground. ArianeGroup operates the largest testing center in Europe focused on liquid hydrogen in this city. As such, it has skills in the field of hydrogen handling, in terms of safety as well as major and unique know-how in the fields of liquefied hydrogen and onboard high-power propulsion systems based on of hydrogen. With hydrogen as an important vector of our society’s energy transition, ArianeGroup intends to be a leading player and promote its experience, its equipment and its skills. Objectives: contribute to the development of the Vernon site, participate in the development of research, innovation and skills linked to hydrogen in Normandy and contribute to the deployment of hydrogen for terrestrial, aeronautical, maritime and space applications, while decarbonizing its industrial practices. More generally, Normandy has also positioned itself as a leader in the H2Valleys interregional European industrial modernization partnership launched in 2019.
Hydrogen stations and fleet of vehicles
The EAS-HyMob project was closed in December 2020. It made it possible to set up a network of eight operational hydrogen recharging stations, and a ninth is currently being installed. With the Saint-Lô hydrogen station installed in 2015 by the Manche department, Normandy currently has the densest regional network of hydrogen stations in France for recharging light vehicles with stations 20 kg/d – 350 bars – and the Évreux station (50 kg/d) which constitutes the first dual-pressure hydrogen station in Normandy (350/700 bars), associated with a CNG station. This first multi-energy site foreshadows the future of mobility in the region. In total, 20 communities and 27 companies were involved in the realization of this project which benefited from a European subsidy of 50% and a regional subsidy of 20% and which demonstrates the importance of public-private collaboration for the success of this type of project. In addition to the forty vehicles in circulation, the vehicles constituting the captive fleets of the EAS-HyMob network (50 purchase commitments from communities and businesses have been collected) are being ordered or delivered. The Region is offering fixed aid of 10,000 euros for the acquisition of a new hydrogen vehicle. But the Normandy Region intends to further develop mobility by focusing on heavy vehicles. Thus, to date, ten additional station projects have been identified in Normandy, and three hydrogen bus and garbage dumpster projects have been submitted to the AAP ADEME “Territorial Hydrogen Ecosystems” by Normandy communities for a total of 26 buses and 9 garbage bins and a hydrogen coach experiment at the end of 2021. In fact, the Normandy Region has just announced its support, with 400,000 €, to the project of the first retrofit of a thermal coach into a hydrogen electric coach on an Iveco Crossway model of Euro V standard. This project was carried out by Transdev Normandie, transport service of the Region, since the publication of the decree of March 13, 2020 relating to the conditions for transforming vehicles with thermal engines into electric engines with batteries or fuel cells.
This European first brings together university players and laboratories (INSA, CERTAM, CMQ Industrie de la Mobilité Normandie, Le Dôme), industrial players (IBF H2, IAV, Iveco), an institutional player (Headquarters 27, Energy Union de l’Eure), as well as partners (Crédit Agricole Normandie Seine , Engie) on the Car Nomad Normandie line linking Évreux to Rouen. Project schedule:
– 2e et 3e quarters of 2021: completion of the retrofit;
– 4e quarter 2021: completion of the first runs, approval of the vehicle prototype, driver training;
– 2022: first year of full operation.
This project will address technical and legal challenges in terms of engine conversion, but also approval and certification, thus paving the way for the installation of a real retrofit industry in Normandy, but which could benefit the entire hydrogen sector in France. This project will be based on an EAS-HyMob refueling terminal, that of Viel-Évreux, with a capacity of 50 kg/day.
