Green hydrogen hub in the Zeeland/East Flanders border region

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North Sea Port's ambition is to become Europe's green hydrogen hub. A significant amount of grey hydrogen is already produced in the ports of Flushing/Terneuzen and Ghent. As wind power and solar energy grow, sustainably generated (green) hydrogen will play a more significant role. But expansion of the region's underground energy infrastructure is a crucial requirement.

Witteveen+Bos is involved in three projects in the North Sea Port area that contribute to a more sustainable energy supply. We are implementing these projects for Ørsted, Lion Storage and VoltH2. The scope includes underground electric cables, hydrogen pipelines and demi-water pipelines that are needed to produce renewable hydrogen, buffer it, and deliver it as hydrogen or convert it into an electricity infeed. Integrating this underground infrastructure from a spatial planning perspective is a complicated puzzle. There is already an extensive network of cables and pipes operated by government agencies and companies that must be taken into account. For example, high-voltage power lines create electromagnetic fields and generate heat, which can negatively affect existing pipes by accelerating the rate of corrosion.

Coordination with the competent authority

For these projects, we deploy our civil, electrical and contractual expertise, undertake permit management including all the conditions-related surveys and arrange Rights in Rem Agreements with businesses and individuals. So we play an important role in coordinating with the competent authority, North Sea Port and other stakeholders in the area.

 

Projects

Ørsted plans to build an electrolyser in the port of Flushing with a capacity of 1 MW, expandable to 2 GW. The company operates two wind farms off the coast of Zeeland, which it intends to use to power the electrolyser. To do so, it must lay a 380 kV connection to the TenneT substation in Borssele. We drew up the preliminary and final design for this cable route.

VoltH2 intends to build two hydrogen plants on the Axelse Vlakte near Sluiskil, Terneuzen and in the port of Flushing. A 150 kV cable is required in both cases to connect the plants to the TenneT-Westdorpe (Sluiskil) and TenneT-Borssele (Flushing) substations. The cables will be laid in open trenches and using directional drilling techniques. W+B is handling the entire design, contracting and permit activities for both VoltH2 projects.

Lion Storage is developing a large 350 MW capacity battery farm, called Mufasa, in the port of Flushing. In order to transport electricity from the Borssele high-voltage substation to the battery farms and vice versa, a new high-voltage connection needs to be laid. There are several bottlenecks on the route, such as existing cables and pipes, the railway line and the primary flood defence barrier. Directional drilling is needed in order to run the cables past these bottlenecks. Open trench excavation is sufficient in the remaining locations.

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