- A study on the development and expansion of an H2 transport network in Brandenburg is now available
- Steinbach: “Transport network is the backbone for the hydrogen economy
Potsdam, February 16, 2023. “Efficient hydrogen transport infrastructure is the backbone of the future hydrogen economy. Because it is the only way to transport the amounts of hydrogen that our industry needs.
“We now have a concept for a Brandenburg hydrogen start-up network, including specific routes in the various time periods,” explained Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach today at the presentation of the feasibility study on the “development and expansion of an efficient hydrogen transport network in Brandenburg”.
As part of the study commissioned by the Ministry of Economics, Labor and Energy last year, a comprehensive analysis was carried out to forecast future hydrogen consumption and production potential up to the year 2045. Needs-oriented, cost-efficient routes were then derived from this. The aim is to develop a higher-level hydrogen network that connects regional hydrogen producers, storage facilities and end users and fits into a Germany-wide hydrogen infrastructure.
The study was carried out by a consortium consisting of the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Energy (IEG), the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) and INFRACON Infrastructure Service GmbH & Co .KG. “The study provides a solid basis for establishing a hydrogen economy and was able to show how hydrogen requirements and hydrogen production are developing in Brandenburg, what a future hydrogen network in Brandenburg can look like and what investment framework is necessary. It will serve as a basis for future planning by producers, grid operators and consumers,” emphasized Steinbach.
The minister continued: “The Berlin Brandenburg hydrogen marketplace, which went into operation in 2022, shows how great the need for an H2 transport network is. Almost 300 companies and institutions with more than 300 projects are already registered there. This and the plans of the gas network operators to convert the first gas routes show that the ramp-up of the hydrogen economy in Brandenburg is picking up speed.”
dr Thorsten Spillmanfrom Fraunhofer IEG, who coordinated the study, explained: “Brandenburg is not only an important transit country that connects the northern hydrogen import and production locations with the southern federal states, but also has considerable potential for the production of green electricity and hydrogen as well as its own Excess amounts of electricity can be stored in the form of hydrogen and later converted back into electricity or used in other sectors. In the long term, regional hydrogen production could increase to over 20 TWh, with former opencast coal mines showing particularly high potential. “The availability of hydrogen is an important prerequisite for the decarbonization of the regional raw materials industry,” Spillmann continues.
Florian Temmler , planning engineer and project manager at INFRACON Infrastructure Service GmbH & Co. KG, added: “As part of the study, we designed a hydrogen network for Brandenburg with which the forecast quantities can be safely transported from the hydrogen sources to the users. It has a total length of around 1,100 kilometers. Of these, around 600 kilometers (54%) are converted natural gas pipelines and around 500 kilometers (46%) are new lines. This ensures an economically viable network structure.”
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Steinbach: “The options shown for using the existing natural gas infrastructure and bundling routes show that we can save around 55 percent of the necessary investment costs compared to purely new routes.”
