Siemens Gamesa wants to add hydrogen technology to a decade-old Scottish wind farm as it begins enacting its strategy to give existing projects a fresh impetus with green H2.
The OEM has linked with UK utility SSE to unveil plans to deploy an electrolyser and associated infrastructure at the latter’s 110MW Gordonbush project.
The proposed upgrade, which would also include battery storage facilities to store excess power, would leave Gordonbush able to produce up to 2,000 tonnes of green H2 a year to serve what the partners say is fast-emerging regional demand for the energy transition fuel.
Annant Shah, director of strategy for SSE Renewables, said: “Combining electrolyser and battery technology with wind farms could be a game changer in solving the renewables variability challenge and shows the potential for wind power to help enhance energy security by reducing our reliance on imported gas.”
The utility and OEM agreed in 2021 to look at the potential adding green hydrogen output to its wind farms.
The planned retrofitting of hydrogen production to Gordonbush is an early example of a strategy Siemens Gamesa outlined to Recharge early last year involving the marrying of green H2 to already operational onshore wind.
Juan Gutiérrez, Siemens Gamesa’s service CEO, said then that in certain cases he believed onshore wind-powered electrolysers could be competitive with grey hydrogen produced using fossil fuels within two years – a situation likely to have been accelerated by spiraling gas prices that have made green H2 suddenly more viable.
Siemens Gamesa has tested linking onshore wind and hydrogen electrolysis for more than a year at a test site at Brande, Denmark, where a single turbine has successfully produced H2 for use by fuel cell-powered taxis.
