You have to imagine a big buoy, surmounted by containers floating 20 km off the coast. This platform of about fifteen meters high should soon be able to produce 400 kg of hydrogen per day. To give you an idea, it takes one kilo of hydrogen to run a car over 100 km, so with this production there will be enough to run 400 vehicles over 100 km daily.
It will initially be an experimental production, so the hydrogen will not be valued right away, but the objective is to then connect this platform by pipeline, to transport the hydrogen to the mainland, where it will be able to supply cars or even forklifts in logistics centres. Knowing that today, indicates the French company Lhyfe, which will ensure this production, a full tank of hydrogen costs about the same price as a full tank of gasoline.
This hydrogen is obtained by electrolysis by breaking water molecules. If you are on an offshore platform, the advantage is that the water can come from the sea (we desalinate it) and that the electricity can come from a nearby wind turbine. Green hydrogen is thus produced from renewable electricity, and this green hydrogen has a carbon footprint ten times lower than “grey” hydrogen, produced from hydrocarbons.
This production at sea is a major technical challenge because this is where the world premiere takes place. The company Lhyfe has already proven that it knows how to produce hydrogen on land thanks to wind turbines (it already installed a pilot production site last year in Bouin in Vendée). Here the technical challenge is that we add the constraints of the open sea, explains Antoine Hamon, the director of operations. This means restricted space, wind, waves, humidity and the risk of corrosion of the equipment.
To this must be added the challenge of remote control from the mainland since, apart from maintenance operations, this platform will have to operate in an automated manner. The experimentation phase, first at the quay and then at sea, should last 18 months.