The world’s first offshore wind–green hydrogen pilot just triumphed

The world’s first offshore wind–green hydrogen pilot has just produced its first green hydrogen off the coast of France.

Wind-generated electricity can power water electrolysis – that’s the process of using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen – to produce green hydrogen, and this is exactly what just happened.

French green hydrogen company Lhyfe announced that its offshore wind–green hydrogen pilot, a 200-square-meter (2,153-square-foot) platform called Sealhyfe, has produced its first kilos of green hydrogen.

From September 2022 to May 2023, Sealhyfe was moored at the Quai des Frégates in the Port of Saint-Nazaire.

Sealhyfe, which has a 1 megawatt (MW) electrolyzer, was towed 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) offshore in May, off the coast of Le Croisic, near Nantes. It was then connected via cable to French engineering school Central Nantes’ SEM-REV offshore testing hub, which is operated by the OPEN-C Foundation. SEM-REV was already linked to the 2 MW Floatgen floating wind turbine.

Once Sealhyfe was hooked up, it began to produce its first kilos of offshore green hydrogen. When it becomes fully operational, the green hydrogen pilot project will be able to produce up to 400 kilograms (882 pounds) of hydrogen daily.

Sealhyfe has a floating platform called WAVEGEM that has been reengineered to stabilize the production unit at sea. In its second trial phase, it’s now going to be put to the test in more difficult real-life conditions in the Atlantic Ocean.

Matthieu Guesné, founder and CEO of Lhyfe, said:

Our team – supported brilliantly by our partners – has achieved a genuine feat of technology in successfully designing this first floating green hydrogen production site.

We are extremely proud to be the first in the world to produce hydrogen at sea. This has been our wish since the launch of the company and we continue to move very quickly on offshore, which for us represents a tremendous development opportunity for mass producing hydrogen and decarbonising industry and transport.

Read more: Meet the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell-powered container handler

Photo: Lhyfe

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