Emerson to accelerate green hydrogen production
PosHYdon project to provide a pathway to large-scale offshore green hydrogen production.
Emerson is developing software and systems to enable the safe and efficient operation of the world’s first offshore green hydrogen production process on an operational gas platform.
The PosHYdon project is a pilot to validate the integration of offshore wind power and offshore natural gas and hydrogen production at sea—generating renewable fuels by harnessing a green energy source.
The Neptune Energy-operated platform Q13a-A in the Dutch North Sea will host the project, which will provide insight into electrolyser efficiency from a variable power supply and the cost of installing and maintaining a green hydrogen production plant on an offshore platform.
Wind power will be used to run the production process, which will convert seawater into demineralised water and then safely produce hydrogen via electrolysis. The hydrogen is then blended with the natural gas, transported to the coast via the existing gas pipeline, and fed into the national gas grid. The 1 MW electrolyser is expected to produce up to three tonnes/week of hydrogen.
Emerson’s DeltaV™ distributed control system, DeltaV safety instrumented system and DeltaV Live operator interface software will manage the desalination and electrolyser units, gas blending and balance of plant equipment. The solution will ensure the existing natural gas operations remain unaffected and blended gas meets its required specification.
The project has been awarded a €3.6 million grant from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) under the agency’s Demonstration Energy and Climate Innovation scheme.
The partners in PosHYdon project consortium include:
- Deme Offshore
- Eneco
- Gasunie
- Hatenboer
- InVesta
- Iv-Offshore & Energy and Emerson
- Nel Hydrogen
- Neptune Energy
- Nexstep
- Nogat
- Noordgastransport
- Taqa
- TNO
Mark Bulanda, executive president of Emerson’s Automation Solutions business, said, “The PosHYdon project creates a unique opportunity to develop the steps required to ensure safe, large-scale green hydrogen production at sea.”
