In 2025, Bremen is to be connected to a national transport network for hydrogen that also runs through Lower Saxony. The work on this should begin this year between Hamburg and Bremen, said the manager of the transmission system operator Gasunie Deutschland, Anke Alvermann-Schuler, on Tuesday in Bremen. Gasunie is building the Hyperlink transport system, which is intended to connect Germany with the neighboring countries of the Netherlands and Denmark, among other things.
Hydrogen is to be transported to customers with a hyperlink. Industry needs the gas on a large scale for steel production, among other things. Hydrogen can also be used for fuel cells in cars, commercial vehicles and airplanes. The energy source could be used in the Bremen steelworks in the future. Discussions are ongoing, but there is no contract yet. In Lower Saxony, a hyperlink should lead to important industrial locations such as Salzgitter and Wolfsburg. A connection to North Rhine-Westphalia is also planned.
According to the Bremen Senator for Economic Affairs Kristina Vogt (left), the state is on the way to a hydrogen economy. One of Vogt’s goals is for the Bremen steelworks to be connected to Hyperlink as a potential large-scale consumer of hydrogen. This gave other companies the opportunity to use the access, said Vogt. “It is particularly important to me to support not only the steel works, but also the small and medium-sized companies on their way to the hydrogen economy.”
Bremen itself makes H2
Vogt also referred to the existing Hybit hydrogen project. An electrolysis plant with a capacity of ten megawatts for hydrogen production is to be built at the Bremen-Mittelsbüren power plant site. Bremer Hydrogen GmbH will start construction work in the spring.
According to Gasunie, the hyperlink should reach a length of around 1000 kilometers. Existing natural gas pipes with a length of around 690 kilometers are to be used for this purpose. It is then no longer natural gas that flows through them, but hydrogen. The existing pipes are suitable despite the different densities of hydrogen and natural gas, says Gasunie. Among other things, however, fittings would have to be retrofitted. Sections with a length of 270 kilometers are to be rebuilt.
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