Dutch developers Novar and Avitec are leading the project with support from a consortium of Dutch engineering and technology suppliers, including Plug Power, Resato Hydrogen Technology, Van Halteren Technologies and Summit Renewable Projects, which are responsible for the installation. Dutch sustainable energy company Repowered provides system control and optimization, while green energy service partner Klaer is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the system.
The H2 Hollandia project reached financial close in October. It is financed through a combination of support from Novar and Avitec, grants at national and regional level and support from Utrecht Rabobank, which provided debt financing through a tailor-made loan structure.
Jeroen Jansen, Consultancy Team Lead at Repowered, explains pv magazine The combination of financing the project and securing a buyer for all hydrogen produced were the key factors in achieving financial closure. Although the name of the off-taker has not yet been made public, Jansen said the hydrogen will be used regionally, with the off-taker loading the hydrogen onto high-pressure cylinder trailers, known as tube trailers, for transport to end users involved in, among other things, local mobility applications.
Jansen explains that the connection to the Vloeivelden Hollandia solar park provides benefits for both the hydrogen and solar installations. The connection of the electrolyzer to the electricity grid behind the existing grid connection of the solar park has saved project costs, while the use of an electrolyzer will enable the solar park to utilize currently untapped energy.
“Currently the solar park has a grid connection capacity of 70 MVA, but the park itself is 115 MW, so you do have some limitations,” Jansen explains. “With the electrolyzer we basically avoid 50% of this throttling, which will instead be used for hydrogen production. Of course, it doesn’t just run on throttling – it runs partly on throttling and partly to regular solar energy – but this allows the solar project to use more energy, which is good from a sustainability perspective and for the business case.”
The difference in size between the electrolyzer and the solar park ensures that the electrolyzer can produce at full capacity every day, according to Jensen. “During the day, when the sun is shining, the system can produce a stable load because this is the lower part of the solar production profile,” he explains.
Jansen also said it pv magazine the prospects for the construction of hydrogen power stations next to solar or wind projects in the Netherlands are promising. “If there is an industrial company that needs hydrogen, or if you have a mobility hub that wants to partner with a hydrogen factory, these projects may be limited by network rates and costs,” he said. “Having renewable energy sources on site is preferable when considering these costs in the Netherlands, especially as they are expected to rise in the coming years.”
H2 Hollandia is expected to enter the testing and commissioning phase in the first half of next year and is expected to start producing hydrogen sometime next summer.
In August, the Netherlands awarded 700 million euros to 11 companies in the second round of subsidies for large-scale hydrogen projects. The awarded projects have a combined electrolysis capacity of approximately 600 MW.
Novar recently installed its own grid connection at the location of a project that will become the largest solar park in the Netherlands. Thanks to the connection, the company can act as its own distribution network operator by connecting directly to the high-voltage network.
