Shell launches largest PEM electrolysis plant in Europe

Shell is a company we know primarily as a producer of fuels and oils, but environmental pressures are very strong and it is clear that a stubborn focus on petroleum products might not be prudent. Therefore, in February, it stated that it wants to sell by 2030 560 TWh of electricity per year and also pay attention to hydrogen. It also shows startup largest green hydrogen factory using PEM electrolysis in Europe. However, it is not the largest in the world, this primate holds a 20MW factory in Canada.
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In the case of Shell, it is a 10MW Refhyne factory in the Rhineland near Cologne. Shell also wants to produce sustainable fuels for the aerospace industry and “renewable” natural gas (bio-LNG). As for the production of green hydrogen, an annual production of 1,300 tons is planned here (which could be enough for passenger cars with a consumption of 1.1 kg / 100 km to cover about 120 million km, ie for an annual drive of about 8,000 cars, editor’s note). It is gradually planned to increase the production capacity up to 100 MW (Refhyne II).

Hydrogen is considered a promising fuel and a form of storing electricity of the future. In terms of storage, it has much lower environmental impacts than batteries, on the other hand there is a problem of inefficiency (using electricity “via a flashlight” brings lower losses than using electricity to produce hydrogen, compress it and then convert it back into electricity via a fuel cell) . However, this is far from the only way, there are other ways of storing hydrogen, such as chemically via ammonia and other compounds.

The new plant was also financed with the help of Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) from the European Union, the production of the cell was taken care of by the company ITM Power in Sheffield. The advantage of PEM electrolysis is higher efficiency than older methods (alkaline electrolyzers), it can also respond much better dynamically to rapidly changing current levels. This makes it much more suitable for storing energy from renewable sources.

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