// Living lab H2-Wyhlen
Green hydrogen from the living lab
The largest power-to-gas plant in southern Germany with an electrical connected load of one megawatt has been in regular operation in the town of Grenzach-Wyhlen in southern Baden since December 2019. The hydrogen is produced by water electrolysis using renewable electricity from the hydropower plant. The flagship project, funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg, formed the basis for a follow-up project called “Real-world laboratory of the energy transition H2-Wyhlen”.
This pioneering project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection and aims, among other things, to expand the electrolysis capacity from 1 to 6 MW of electrical power.
As part of a collaboration, the ZSW is researching electrolysis technologies suitable for series production - the prerequisite for the industrial production of green hydrogen. This collaboration includes the consortium leaders naturenergie hochrhein AG and EnBW, the partners Holzapfel Group and Dialogik gGmbH and the ZSW, as well as the associated partner DSM Nutritional Products GmbH. This creates the basis for upscaling the technology: costs are reduced and the market can develop more quickly in the direction of the green energy transition.
The hydrogen produced in Wyhlen can be integrated directly into the region's energy infrastructure: City buses or trucks could fill up on site after converting to fuel cell drives and companies in the industrial park could use it as a raw material for their production. The electrolysis plant achieves high full-load hours at the site, as hydropower is independent of the weather and is available around the clock. These are important factors for the economical production of green hydrogen.
At the ZSW, alkaline electrolysis technology is being developed to market maturity for industrial production. Prototypes in the power class up to 1 MWel are to be validated in the R&D plant section in a real environment. Electroplated electrodes will be integrated into the prototypes for this purpose. In an accompanying R&D project, selected materials and processes will be screened and validated to enable the step from manufacturing to series production processes with low material and manufacturing costs. Various business models for a power-to-gas plant are also being investigated - e.g. the influence of system coupling (e.g. electricity, heat, gas market) on economic efficiency.
