Lhyfe, Europe’s green and renewable hydrogen producer, has announced that Sealhyfe, the world’s first offshore hydrogen production pilot, is now producing green hydrogen from a floating wind turbine in the Atlantic Ocean off Le Croisic on the West Coast of France.
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After an initial phase of trials at quay, the Sealhyfe hydrogen production platform has now been connected to France’s Centrale Nantes’ SEM-REV offshore testing site, in the Atlantic 20 km off the French coastal town of Le Croisic. Sealhyfe is now connected via a subsea hub to a floating wind turbine, entering the second trial phase to prove the feasibility of producing hydrogen offshore under the toughest conditions.
This represents a historic step towards new clean energy based on the large-scale production of green hydrogen.
Designed to meet unprecedented challenges
At the outset of this project, Lhyfe wanted to prove the technical feasibility of producing hydrogen offshore and to acquire the operational experience needed to quickly scale up offshore production as a gamechanger in decarbonising the fuels needed for transportation and industry.
The company therefore voluntarily chose to expose Sealhyfe to the toughest conditions. It is being tested under real conditions on a floating platform, re-engineered from a WAVEGEM platform by GEPS Techno to stabilise the production unit at sea. The system is connected to Centrale Nantes’ SEM-REV offshore testing hub operated by the OPEN-C Foundation, which is already linked to a floating wind turbine, FLOATGEN, engineered and operated by BW Ideol.
The Sealhyfe platform meets several key challenges, including:
- Performing all stages of hydrogen production at sea, ie, converting the electrical voltage from the floating wind turbine; pumping, desalinating and purifying the seawater; and breaking the water molecules via electrolysis to obtain renewable green hydrogen.
- Managing the effects on the system from the platform’s motion at sea: listing, accelerations, swinging movements, and much more.
- Enduring environmental stress: Sealhyfe will have to survive premature ageing of its components as a result of corrosion, impacts, temperature variations, etc.
- Operating in an isolated environment: the platform must operate fully automatically, without the physical intervention of an operator, except for scheduled maintenance periods that have been optimally integrated from the design phase.
Lhyfe and its partners have designed, built, and assembled all the technology necessary for producing hydrogen offshore – including the 1.0 MW electrolyser supplied by Plug – in just 16 months. The Sealhyfe platform, which is less than 200 m2, can produce up to 400 kg of hydrogen a day, which is approximately equivalent to generating 13.2 MWh/day of electricity.
By 2030-2035, offshore could represent an additional installed hydrogen generation capacity, equivalent to around 3.0 GW, for Lhyfe.
The eight months of on-quay trial
From September 2022 to May 2023, Sealhyfe was moored at the Quai des Frégates, in the Port of Saint-Nazaire. Lhyfe and its partners have thus been able to draw knowledge from a series of start-up tests to approach the second phase of the project with confidence, and to get the most out of the trials. Tests included:
Benchmarking: Hundreds of tests were carried out at quay to record the precise behaviour and performance of the platform, so that they could be compared with the Phase 2 trial results via the thousands of sensors installed on the platform.
Technology and system optimisation: All the technology has been adapted to operate offshore in extreme conditions and designed to minimise the number of maintenance interventions required at sea. The tests performed at quay allowed Lhyfe to further optimise and improve the technology’s behaviour.
Development of key solutions: Lhyfe also developed the software and algorithm building blocks necessary to manage the site remotely. It will operate fully autonomously, more than
20 km off the coast while connected to the SEM-REV testing site’s subsea hub.
Following this first phase, Lhyfe has already updated the specifications for all its sites – on- and offshore. All Lhyfe units will therefore benefit from the operating optimisations trialled under this experiment.
The start of offshore production
Sealhyfe was towed to its SEM-REV offshore testing site on 19 May. It was then connected to the site’s subsea hub via a dedicated umbilical cable that was specially designed to produce hydrogen via an electrolyser. The system was restarted and on stream in just 48 hours.
Lhyfe will now reproduce all the tests carried out at quay several times to have a direct comparison of at-quay and offshore results. Offshore specific tests have also been added. In achieving reliable offshore production of hydrogen in an isolated environment, the company will develop a unique operating capability, which involves managing the platform’s movement and environmental stresses, and validating green and renewable hydrogen production software and algorithms.
Next steps
As a logical follow-on to this first stage, Lhyfe recently announced that the HOPE project, which it is coordinating as part of a consortium of nine partners, has been selected by the European Commission under the European Clean Hydrogen Partnership and is being awarded a €20-million grant. With HOPE, Lhyfe and its partners are aiming for commercialisation. This large-scale project (10 MW) will be able to produce up to 4.0 t a day of green hydrogen at sea, which will be exported ashore by pipeline, before being compressed and delivered to customers.
Through these two pioneering projects in offshore hydrogen production, Lhyfe aims to validate industrial solutions which it will submit in response to future calls for projects from various governments. This will help achieve the target of 10-million tonnes of clean hydrogen produced in the European Union by 2030, set by the European Commission as part of the REPowerEU plan.
Sealhyfe has had support from the French energy and environment agency ADEME and the Pays de la Loire Region, and Lhyfe has already signed partnership agreements with wind turbine developers and offshore power specialists, such as EDPR, Centrica and Capital Energy.
Says Matthieu Guesné, chairman, CEO and founder of Lhyfe: “At Lhyfe, we have only one aim: to leave a more breathable planet for our children. This is why we once again wanted to take up a major technological challenge: to prove – by producing hydrogen at sea for the first time – that it is possible to do it as of today. By paving the way for the mass production of renewable hydrogen at sea, Sealhyfe is fully in line with the EU’s strategy to deploy an offshore hydrogen chain and wishes to help build energy sovereignty in many countries,” he says.
Producing hydrogen using offshore wind turbines could give all countries with a coastline access to renewable green hydrogen, which would be produced locally, beyond the horizon line and in industrial quantities. Having taken on this offshore challenge, Lhyfe, has now proved it to be possible.