Hydrogen generation at sea in the German Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) meets the objective of the national and European hydrogen strategy to expand electrolysis capacity while at the same time accelerating the development of offshore wind energy in Germany as a whole. It is synergetically suited to an effective defossilisation of industry. Sea areas far from the coast could be opened up quickly and cheaply for energy production. At the same time it makes a substantial contribution to diversifying supply sources through the generation of domestically produced green hydrogen.
Cross-border cooperation with our European neighbours is fundamentally consolidated by the establishment of a green hydrogen union. This creates opportunities for domestic production and for building green hydrogen production facilities together with European partner states.
In view of the necessary update of the national hydrogen strategy and of all related legal and regulatory framework conditions, the importance of green hydrogen from offshore wind energy must be given even greater weight. The signatory organisations therefore recommend the following measures:
Sites for offshore hydrogen generation. The target for electrolysis capacity in Germany, doubled from five to ten gigawatts, is called for given the high demand and the emergence of a domestic hydrogen industry. Electrolysis at sea can, should and must contribute a significant share of the installed capacity required. Accordingly, the expansion targets for offshore hydrogen generation should be bindingly set at ten gigawatts by 2035 in the National Hydrogen Strategy and in the Offshore Wind Energy Act (WindSeeG), and further sites for energy generation should be designated in the Site Development Plan.
So far only the so-called SEN-1 site is provided for tendering. With a generation potential of around 300 megawatts, however, this area falls far short of what is needed to reach the targeted electrolysis capacity. Further sites must be made available in addition to the sites planned for production for the electricity market. This should apply in particular to sites far from the coast that are suitable for offshore wind energy but for which an electricity connection would be too costly for decades to come, or feasible only well after 2035. Against this background we welcome the fact that, pursuant to Section 5(3) sentence 2 no. 5 WindSeeG, it is to be examined whether opening up an additional potential of 4 to 6 gigawatts of offshore wind energy in the so-called "Entenschnabel" of the German EEZ is possible in an environmentally compatible way. We understand this announcement implicitly as a volume target for offshore hydrogen generation — in addition to the volume target for offshore wind electricity. An obligation to designate sites is, however, not yet provided for in the Act. Here we point out that only a binding volume target — as already exists for the electricity sector — can ensure the necessary expansion of electrolysis and create long-term planning certainty for project developers.
Sites can be made available in the coming years up to 2030 in the course of a sprinter programme for "green hydrogen production" in Germany amounting to 3 gigawatts (2 gigawatts offshore plus 1
gigawatt onshore). The first tenders should be aimed at the first quarter of 2023. Against this background we expressly welcome the Federal Government's plans to accelerate planning and approval procedures and offer our support at any time. Here the announcements must still be followed by concrete action.
Interpret the additionality criterion under the RED II Directive as broadly as possible. Besides providing sufficient sites for offshore electrolysis, it must also be ensured that hydrogen is available on the market in sufficient quantities and at competitive prices. To this end it is important, especially in the initial phase, to frame the requirements for electricity procurement for electrolysis as broadly as possible. The provisions of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) do not do justice to this. The ambitious hydrogen plan of the European Commission's recent REPowerEU package likewise permits, from 2027, only the production of hydrogen from electricity generated by newly built and subsidy-free wind and solar installations. Even if approval procedures for new wind and solar installations are accelerated in future, this would delay the urgently needed ramp-up of the hydrogen economy by years and make the production of large quantities of hydrogen before 2030 impossible. Restricting this solely to new installations, which excludes the use of electricity from existing installations no longer receiving support, leads according to assumptions by Frontier Economics to a considerable increase in the cost of electrolysis. In addition, significantly less green hydrogen could be produced for the same electrolyser capacity. Moreover, the proposal that electrolysers may only produce hydrogen when electricity is being produced almost simultaneously by these new wind and solar farms will make hydrogen unnecessarily expensive and considerably complicate the continuous supply of industry. From the standpoint of climate protection this is entirely unnecessary, since emissions trading regulates CO₂ reductions.
We therefore appeal to the Federal Government, when implementing the delegated act on RED II, to include renewable electricity installations that no longer receive support as existing installations, and to extend the effect of the exemption under Article 8 of the Delegated Act until 2030.
Transport pipeline and infrastructure. For transporting the green hydrogen produced offshore to land, a hydrogen collector pipeline in the North Sea is the best solution.
A hydrogen pipeline offers considerable advantages over laying submarine and land cables, or even shipping, particularly over longer distances. These advantages come to bear above all when generation is scaled up to an industrial scale of 10 gigawatts, for which five cable systems would be required to carry comparable electrical capacity, even with rapid further development of cable technology. A current study by the firm AFRY demonstrates this clearly and shows considerable potential benefits in terms of time savings and environmental compatibility.
Adjusting spatial planning to allow an efficient route is imperative for this. In this respect we welcome the initiative in the WindSeeG amendment under which collector pipelines from other energy generation areas are placed on an equal footing with the direct-current routes previously provided for, and their approval is henceforth to be determined within the plan approval procedure under Sections 45 et seq. WindSeeG. Fixing this transport route in the Federal Government's hydrogen strategy would already today offer planning certainty and expansion potential together with the European Hydrogen Backbone.
Building a German offshore wind hydrogen industry. Against the background of the requirements of the energy transition and a dramatically changing global political situation, the Federal Government must now create the conditions for the ramp-up of a German hydrogen economy — embedded in European cooperation.
Building a hydrogen economy is associated with enormous growth potential for German mechanical engineering and further branches of industry. At the same time, green hydrogen is better able than any other renewable energy carrier to transport and store large quantities of energy cost-effectively over long distances. Both are prerequisites for a secure, economic and sustainable energy supply.
The programme to support the market ramp-up of a German hydrogen industry and of green hydrogen production should comprise a funding volume of at least EUR 10 billion, in order both to achieve the climate targets set and to safeguard the security of the energy supply.
The funding concept should build on the proven, EU-compliant and market-oriented approach of H2Global and should initially support at least 2 gigawatts of electrolysis capacity. Here the systemic perspective must remain in focus, that is, the interlocking of all components of production, transport, storage and consumption. Hydrogen generation integrated into offshore wind turbines in particular offers considerable potential for lowering hydrogen production costs.
In parallel, the process of creating the technical approval prerequisites and standards must be supported, as must a solution for guarantees of origin for green hydrogen.
To date, green hydrogen is not yet competitive with hydrogen produced from fossil fuels. This is primarily due to the significantly higher production costs of electrolysis-based manufacture. Developing a competitive market design for offshore wind hydrogen is therefore a necessary step towards offsetting cost differences. The coalition agreement announced an examination of the introduction of hydrogen contracts for difference (Carbon Contracts for Difference, CCfD, or Contracts for Difference, CfD). In principle, the H2Global concept is a CfD model, albeit for the import of hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives from countries outside the EU. The advantage of this model is that it has already been examined by the EU and its compatibility with European law confirmed. By analogy with the H2Global programme, CCfDs should therefore offer the possibility of substantially bringing forward the market introduction of green hydrogen from domestic green electricity production, above all in the basic materials industries, by cushioning the cost differences mentioned, and thereby incentivise the willingness to purchase green hydrogen. We therefore call for the swift introduction of an instrument based on CCfDs, whereby the emissions avoided by the funded project, as well as the additional costs relative to the CO₂ reduction that arise from producing with the climate protection technology compared with a reference technology, should be the decisive factors taken into account.
Training and employment programme for offshore wind hydrogen systems. As in all growth sectors, the shortage of skilled workers is intensifying in offshore wind energy and in all other areas of the energy transition. The foreseeable employment effects are fundamentally welcome but also entail a corresponding additional need for skilled workers in Germany.
We urgently depend on well-trained personnel and moreover face complex and extreme requirements for skilled workers at sea. Absorbing job losses from other declining areas of the energy sector or the maritime industry is possible only to a limited extent, for instance from power plant control or from work in offshore oil and gas.
Just like other sectors, we therefore call for the requirements of the energy transition to be taken into account still more strongly from school education through to vocational and academic training, and for corresponding programmes to be created. This includes stronger support for women in so-called technical professions.
Demand will scarcely be met by domestic skilled workers alone, but it must always be borne in mind that other markets are also increasingly seeking skilled workers. There is strong competition here for the best talent.
In addition, the conditions for employees in Germany must be competitive in global terms in order to remain attractive for qualified personnel.
Hydrogen partnership between policymakers and industry. Founded in 2021 as a joint initiative, the "Wasserstoffachter" seeks a partnership between policymakers and industry in order to contribute swiftly and effectively, in a moderating and cross-cutting role, to the necessary course-setting decisions, and to accelerate the expansion of renewable energies together with green hydrogen.