Clean energy activity has been seeping beneath the surface of Ireland for several years and is suddenly in full bloom thanks to the advent of new technologies, including green hydrogen and floating wind turbines. This is good news for the economy and great news for the rest of Europe, which is trying to break out of Russia’s fossil energy import network.
Ireland and wind energy and green hydrogen
Our friends in BBC last year it conducted Northern Ireland’s renewable energy profile figures and saw expansive growth in wind energy. They also noted the key role of energy storage, with green hydrogen in the foreground and center.
Last January Irish Times noted that the Republic of Ireland is one of the few EU member states that has yet to formulate a hydrogen strategy, but also noted that the pan-Irish organization Wind Energy Ireland and other supporters are pushing government policies to choose the green light. hydrogen and spheres for long-term energy storage.
For those of you who are interested in what is at stake, hydrogen is ubiquitous throughout the modern global economy, in agriculture, food processing, toiletries, drugs and other products, in addition to serving as a flammable fuel and an input for electricity generation. with zero emissions. fuel cells for stationary use and in the transport sector (including aircraft).
Today, the primary source of hydrogen is natural gas and, to a lesser extent, coal and recovered waste, which explains why industry stakeholders (with one notable exception) are themselves looking for a more sustainable hydrogen supply chain. An emerging favorite is electrolysis, which uses electricity – of course from renewable sources – and a catalyst that expels hydrogen gas from water.
More green hydrogen for Ireland
Hydrogen is the input to the industrial process, the fuel, the energy carrier and the medium for long-term energy storage at once, which means that green hydrogen can juggle many balls in the sparkling green economy of the future, especially in Ireland. which lacks its own oil and gas resources but overall has enough wind energy (Note: in the rest of this article, the North and Republic are mixed. To add more details for our readers, please write this in the comments thread).
On the green hydrogen front, Mercury Renewables is thrilled with its plans to revive the first of its kind on an onshore wind farm connected to an electrolyzer in County Mayo. The 75-megawatt project called Firlough has been in operation for more than 10 years, with some of the delays caused by bottlenecks in the electricity transmission infrastructure. The hydrogen angle will help create space for alternative transport and other applications.
More green hydrogen for more fuel cell electric vehicles
In Galway last April, SSE Renewables announced the launch of the Galway Hydrogen Hub consortium’s Hydrogen Valley project. In addition to SSE, they are members of NUI Galway, Port of Galway, CIÉ Group and Bus Éireann, Aran Islands Ferries, Lasta Mara Teo and Aer Arann Islands.
“Hydrogen Valley is a regional ecosystem that combines the research, production, distribution and transportation of hydrogen with various end users, such as transportation and industry. The use of domestic renewable hydrogen in Hydrogen Valleys is considered an important step in enabling the development of a new hydrogen economy, ”explained SSE.
The Hydrogen Valley flagship project is a demonstration green hydrogen plant to be used for fuel cell trucks, buses and other vehicles. The aim is to replicate the model throughout Ireland.
More wind energy for Ireland
Further details on the Hydrogen Valley project have just been released by the Galway H2 consortium, so stay tuned for more information.
Meanwhile, Simply Blue Group is coming this week with a big new announcement.
On June 21, the company let it escape that it was working on a new Olympic Offshore Wind project off the coast of County Down, which follows on from the previously announced Nomadic Floating Offshore Wind Turbine project. The Nomadic project will power the green hydrogen center through MJM Renewables (a subsidiary of the MJM Group), so stay tuned for more information.
For those of you who keep your score at home, the Olympic project will amass an additional 1.3 gigawatts per Irish offshore wind profile when fully built. The Nomadic project weighs 500 megawatts.
Much more wind energy for Ireland
Simply Blue is quite busy these days. Last fall, Shell invested in Simply Blue’s 1.35-gigawatt Western Star project for offshore floating wind farms, which also includes a wave power element. In total, the company has more than 9 gigawatts of offshore wind in its pipeline, mostly in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Last fall Irish Times also described a new $ 10 billion, 4-gigawatt wind farm project under the wings of Enterprize Energy. The plan is to use wind energy for the green hydrogen market in Ireland.
“The project will provide electricity for a 4 gigawatt hydrogen plant in Ireland, developed by E1-H2 and Zenith Energy. called Green Marlin, which could be generated as early as 2026, “said the Times. “Energy companies have signed the predecessors of the electricity purchase agreement, with EI-H2 taking energy.”
As described in TimesEnterprize and its partners are also monitoring a closely related, emerging green ammonia market. Ammonia (NH3) is another of those fossil fuel-dependent industrial and agricultural chemicals that needs decarbonisation, and green hydrogen finally provides an opportunity.
Ammonia can serve as an alternative transport medium for hydrogen, which would allow the Enterprize project to produce hydrogen for export, or
Meanwhile in Russia
If Russia wants to maintain control over its global energy supply, it has a lot of work to do. President Vladimir Putin’s murderous rage over Ukraine has led the whole of Europe on a fast track to cut off fossil fuels from Russia, and Ukraine intends to use its significant renewable energy sources to remove Russia’s fingers from Europe’s energy pie, especially green hydrogen.
It is also worth noting that offshore wind activity is growing in the Baltic Sea, where Russia has its only seaport and all-weather naval base in the Kaliningrad region. The base is completely surrounded by Lithuania and Poland, but was assigned to Russia when dust settled after World War II.
If Putin and his planners thought ahead, they could use Kaliningrad to gain a foothold in the Baltic’s wind energy sector, but unfortunately. As with many other renewable energy opportunities – and in other matters – they have let this slip through their fingers.
When they last heard about us, Kaliningrad addressed the impact of the ban on the transport of sanctioned products from the rest of Russia by rail, which Lithuania imposed in line with EU policy.
Follow me on Twitter @TinaMCasey.
Photo: Floating offshore wind turbine courtesy of Simply Blue Group.
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