Germany wants to promote green hydrogen, now a first terminal is to be built in Hamburg. A US entrepreneur and a local energy supplier want to invest a billion euros together. In the future, five percent of heavy goods traffic in Germany could be supplied in this way.
The US industrial gases producer Air Products and the energy company Mabanaft want to build the first large import terminal for green hydrogen in the port of Hamburg. At the tank farm of the Mabanaft subsidiary Oiltanking Deutschland, green ammonia is to be converted into green hydrogen from 2026, as the companies announced.
The investments were initially estimated at 500 million euros, but are later to be doubled to around one billion euros. A 55,000-ton ammonia storage facility is to be built for the terminal, which is to be filled with imports from Saudi Arabia. In the desert state, hydrogen is only produced from solar energy, it was said. Nitrogen is then added to this and converted into ammonia, which is brought to Hamburg by ship.
In the new terminal, the ammonia is split back into hydrogen and nitrogen – and the hydrogen is sold. When the plant is ramped up, around 100,000 tons of green hydrogen are then to be produced per year. Since the terminal is to be expanded on a large scale, according to the company, 30,000 trucks or five percent of heavy goods traffic in Germany could ultimately be supplied with hydrogen.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, who traveled to Hamburg to make the location decisions, spoke of a milestone for the ramp-up of the hydrogen economy in Germany. The Federal Republic currently consumes 1000 terawatt hours of natural gas a year, said Habeck. By 2030, this demand will decrease due to the ramp-up of heat pumps. On the other hand, the demand for hydrogen will also increase massively because of the coal phase-out. “Roughly speaking, we will have to replace around ten percent, i.e. 100 terawatt hours, in hydrogen in 2030,” said Habeck. That is the lower limit of the estimates. He assumes that demand will increase faster and higher. “We estimate that about a third of this large amount can be produced in Germany,” said Habeck. The rest – around 70 percent – has to be imported.
“Hamburg offers excellent conditions for the import, distribution and use of green hydrogen,” emphasized Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher. As a commercial city, Hamburg maintains good relationships all over the world, and international partners are very interested in building a green hydrogen economy. “Hamburg aims to become one of the leading hydrogen locations in Europe,” emphasized Tschentscher. Air Products CEO Seifi Ghasemi said: “As the world’s largest producer of hydrogen, Air Products is in an excellent position to meet this demand.” The company has invested billions of dollars to produce renewable energy at locations around the world.
