Green hydrogen - production and perspectives.

Green hydrogen is a central building block for the success of the energy transition and the achievement of the Paris climate goals. Whether in industry, transport or heat supply: The clean energy carrier can replace fossil fuels and thus helps to transform Europe's largest greenhouse gas emitters in a climate-friendly way. Read more about the special features, potential and production of green hydrogen as well as perspectives for the future here!

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Hydrogen has already been produced in Europe for many years - Westfalen is also a producer of hydrogen and has been supplying customers with the versatile gas for decades. Most of the hydrogen produced and used in Europe is currently still grey hydrogen from natural gas. But the electrolysis capacities for green hydrogen will increase in the coming years: Great efforts are being made worldwide to build production capacities, infrastructure and logistics.

On the road to sustainable progress, we as the Westfalen Group are also investing in the future of green hydrogen together with strong partners.

Two examples:

• In the Hansa-BusinessPark in Muenster-Amelsbueren, we want to build a state-of-the-art hydrogen production plant in cooperation with Stadtwerke Muenster, Stadtnetzen Muenster and Frauenhofer Forschungsfertigung.
  In Salzbergen, we want to develop hydrogen as part of the project „H2-Cluster Salzbergen“ participate in the construction of a hydrogen pipeline.

Are you also interested in hydrogen technologies and would like to implement an individual hydrogen project? Let's talk about it: Only by joining forces can the energy transition succeed!

You ask yourself what criteria hydrogen has to fulfil in order to be marketed as "green"? So far, there is no internationally uniform definition for green hydrogen.

General goals and targets for the expansion of renewable energies can be found in RED II. This abbreviation stands for "Renewable Energy Directive II" and means Directive EU 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. The directive also contains information on the use of green hydrogen, among other things for use as a fuel in the transport sector. In February 2023, the European Commission published its additional definition of green hydrogen. According to this, hydrogen is considered "green" if it is produced by means of electrolysis with electricity from renewable energies. The Commission attaches various conditions to the production of electricity and hydrogen. For example, the electricity should in future come from newly built plants and be produced in the same hour as the end product hydrogen.

The understanding of TÜV Süd is a little broader here. The renowned testing organisation has developed the "Green Hydrogen" certification. This compares the greenhouse gas emissions of hydrogen produced from renewable sources with those of conventionally produced hydrogen or fossil fuels. A certificate is issued if the greenhouse gas emissions of the hydrogen are at least 70 % below the comparative value for fossil fuels in RED II and this is confirmed in regular checks. In addition to the electrolysis of water using electricity from renewable energies, three other processes for hydrogen production are also considered "green" according to the TÜV. The TÜV Rheinland distinguishes between renewable hydrogen and low-CO2 hydrogen in its certification. Optionally, further additional criteria can be certified: green hydrogen, RFNBO, blue hydrogen (CCS/CCU), turquoise hydrogen, pink hydrogen, carbon neutral hydrogen.

Also CertifHy™ provides certification for hydrogen.