Two infrastructure projects, Doing Hydrogen and Green Octopus Mitteldeutschland, are involved in the planned 900km pipeline which will connect producers, storage facilities, consumers of green hydrogen and import points.

Ralph Bahke, Managing Director Controlling and Development, said, “A functioning transport system is the foundation for the hydrogen economy in eastern Germany – and thus for the success of the transformation of our energy system.”

Uwe Ringel, Managing Director Operations and Safety, said the network will mostly repurpose natural gas pipelines. ONTRAS is responsible for around 7,700km of high-pressure pipelines in the region.

According to both Managing Directors, it is important that hydrogen infrastructure grows hand-in-hand with the emerging hydrogen economy in order to ensure a high degree of flexibility and security of supply right from the start. “We therefore call on policy makers to create binding framework conditions as soon as possible to accelerate the rapid development of hydrogen infrastructure in eastern Germany”, it said in a statement.

Last month ONTRAS, together with European TSOs Gasgrid Finland (Finland), Elering (Estonia), Conexus Baltic Grid (Latvia), Amber Grid (Lithuania) and GAZ-SYSTEM (Poland), signed a cooperation agreement to develop hydrogen infrastructure from Finland through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to Germany to meet REPowerEU 2030 targets.

The Nordic-Baltic Hydrogen Corridor will strengthen region’s energy security, reduce the dependency of imported fossil energy and play a prominent role in decarbonising societies and energy-intensive industries along the corridor. It also has significant potential to contribute to the EU’s greenhouse gas emission reduction target by replacing today’s fossil-based production and fossil fuel consumption in industry, transport sector, electricity and heating, with these based on new renewable fuel, such as green hydrogen.

In 2023, during the first phase of the project development, project partners will conduct a pre-feasibility study and based on its recommendations, a decision on its development would be made. Following phases would include engineering and permitting phase, construction and commissioning.

The corridor supports diversification of energy supplies, and accelerated roll-out of renewable energy allowing in particular for achieving the EU target of 10m tonnes of domestic renewable hydrogen production by 2030. It can transport green hydrogen produced in the Baltic Sea area to supply consumption points and industrial clusters along the whole corridor, as well as in central Europe.

In another project, Flow – making hydrogen happen, ONTRAS is working with GASCADE Gastransport and terranets to create a pipeline system for climate-neutral hydrogen running from the Baltic Sea to south-west Germany.

The first large pipelines aim to be ready by 2025, transporting ‘significant quantities’ from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania to Thuringia. The conversion in Hesse and the Rhineland-Palatinate is due to follow in 2028.