Under a joint development agreement, revealed today (November 17), the companies will look to facilitate the import of green ammonia from large-scale green hydrogen production facilities operated by Air Products and its partners around the world.
H2 View understands, the intention is to convert the ammonia to green hydrogen at Air Products’ facilities in Hamburg, from which it will be distributed to buyers across northern Germany, which is hoped to respond to accelerating demand for clean energy to meet climate objectives and diversify energy supply.
It comes as Europe strives to meet its REPowerEU goals of importing 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen by 2030, as well as boosting domestic production to 10 million tonnes, in a bid to meet its Fit for 55 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, while cutting reliance on Russian fossil fuels.
Read more: REPowerEU: €34-49bn needed for hydrogen infrastructure
Commenting on the plans, Seifi Ghasemi, Chairman, President, and CEO of Air Products, said, “Together with Mabanaft, we look forward to further progressing our plans of importing needed-renewable energy into Germany, through our planned facility.
“As the world’s largest producer of hydrogen, Air Products is in an excellent position to meet demand, having committed billions of dollars to produce renewable energy at locations around the world. Air Products fully appreciates the support and visionary leadership of the German government.”
Volker Ebeling, Senior Vice-President New Energy, Chemicals & Gas at Mabanaft, added, “We are delighted to work together with Air Products, the world’s leading hydrogen producer, on the development of this terminal. As a result, we will make significant investments and deploy our energy infrastructure capabilities and expertise to accelerate the energy transition in Hamburg as the key import gateway for Germany.”
In August (2022), German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau launched the Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance with aims of exporting Canadian hydrogen to Germany by 2025.
Read more: Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance targets first exports by 2025
Air Products, this month (November 2022), announced it was set to receive CAD$475m ($355m) of Canadian federal and provincial government funding to develop its multi-billion-dollar Net Zero hydrogen energy complex in Alberta, Canada, which is hoped to be onstream in 2024.
Backing Air Products’ and Mabanaft’s plans, Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, said, “Now more than ever, we need to advance the hydrogen economy. To do this, we are setting up our own hydrogen production in Germany, but of course we also need hydrogen from imports.
“An accelerated energy transition with more speed in expanding renewable energies and ramping up green hydrogen are the right answers to the Russian aggression and the right answers to strengthen energy security, resilience and competitiveness.”
Following on from an agreement signed between Air Products and the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) to create a hydrogen value chain across the German port in February (2022), Jens Meier, CEO of the HPA has said the new project will be a central element of the port.
Read more: Port of Hamburg signs agreement with Air Products to create a comprehensive value chain for hydrogen
Meier commented, “The Port of Hamburg is committed to protecting the climate. After completing the first important milestone by signing an MoU in February 2022 with Air Products, we are happy that we take now the next important step toward building a hydrogen value chain in co-operation with our competent partners, Air Products and Mabanaft, the central element of which will be the import of green ammonia for conversion to green hydrogen.
“Hamburg will be one of the first ports worldwide to offer clean hydrogen import infrastructure. This import will drive the decarbonation for several applications in the harbour, as well as applications in shipping.”