Holland Hydrogen 1

With the Holland Hydrogen 1 project, Shell foresees the realization of a careful and systematic build up in electrolyser size and system integration to the multi-GW level. This Holland Hydrogen 1 project is part of an end-to-end project deploying green hydrogen production, distribution and use at an unprecedented scale.

Europe's recently launched hydrogen strategy is based on the large-scale generation of hydrogen from renewable electricity at a multi-GW scale. At this scale, renewable hydrogen will be able to play a major role in decarbonising Europe's industries, heavy duty transport systems and heat. However, in the Netherlands, the current electrolyser systems are nowhere near this size. The green hydrogen deployment at this scale is also not expected to become commercially viable as an alternative to the use of grey (natural gas-derived) hydrogen in refineries, or to diesel for heavy duty transport, until the late 2020s. The two substantial challenges for the successful implementation of renewable hydrogen at scale are first and foremost affordability, requiring cost reduction to be achieved by scale in the supply chain, and secondly a synchronized development of both supply and demand, requiring coördination and orchestration across the value chain.

The total investment (CAPEX) for the Holland Hydrogen 1 projects amounts to €684.2 mln, though only €458.2 mln are eligible costs. Shell will invest in a wide variety of tools and equipment for the purposes of the project. In particular for the Green Hydrogen Hub in Rotterdam it will include the following:
- Electrolyser stacks to generate the hydrogen;
- Connections for feed and output including demineralised water supply, hydrogen and oxygen vents, hydrogen backbone connection;
- Utilities for the electrolyser site such as cooling water and an electrical grid connection, also transformers, rectifiers etc.;
- Hydrogen processing equipment including compression, cooling, drying and flow rate measurement.
Shell is also taking the lead in the development (as investor and developer) of the 380kV power infrastructure (4 km cable and transmission station) on behalf of the future inhabitants of the Conversion Park and Port of Rotterdam. It is the intent that the shared infrastructure will be available to future third party electrolyser developers.

Shell will install a 200MW electrolyser using state of the art electrolyser technology supplied by ThyssenKrupp, one of Europe's leading electrolyser providers.