Offshore hydrogen

Our North Sea: a source of energy. It's the place where we generate enormous volumes of wind energy, energy that is desperately needed if we want to supply the whole of the Netherlands with sustainable electricity in the future. But to have sufficient energy available at all times, we need more power still. Fortunately, the wind energy produced offshore can be converted into green hydrogen when necessary. For this we have electrolysers that split seawater into oxygen and hydrogen, this way converting electricity into hydrogen ready to be transported ashore.

An offshore hydrogen network is indispensable in all of this. At Gasunie we are working day in, day out on a hydrogen network that can safely transport ashore the hydrogen produced out at sea. We are designing a network that takes the North Sea's ecological carrying capacity into account as much as possible and that reuses existing natural gas pipelines wherever we can. We are also taking future developments into account to the best of our ability. With this approach we can build a network – at the lowest possible social cost – that will last for decades, a network that is, above all, safe. 

With our future network we expect to be able to effortlessly transport large volumes of hydrogen ashore and feed it into the onshore hydrogen network. We are also setting up international connections to meet the need for hydrogen in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. This way we can jointly develop a European energy hub. This will also be facilitated through storage facilities in the form of onshore salt caverns and possibly, in due course, also depleted gas fields. This will ensure that we always have energy, even when the wind is not blowing.