Lhyfe Begins Construction of Hydrogen Plant in Germany

Lhyfe, a European group and producer and supplier of renewable hydrogen, is beginning construction of a hydrogen production plant in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. 

The new site is the largest green hydrogen plant in Baden-Württemberg, as well as the first in a network of more plants to be operated by Lhyfe, and the company said it expects to produce up to 4 metric tons of green hydrogen a day based on 10 megawatts of installed capacity at the facility. The company’s production pipeline represents a total installed production capacity of 10.3 gigawatts across Europe. 

The plant will use renewable electricity secured from hydro, wind, and solar power purchase agreements and is scheduled to be commissioned in the second half of 2024. 

The hydrogen is planned to be used in the H2-Aspen industrial park and at a JET H2 hydrogen filling station. Lhyfe signed an agreement for the construction of the hydrogen filling station in Schwäbisch Gmünd with the joint venture JET H2. 

The project is funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg and the EU. It comes at a time when Germany is ramping up its hydrogen production. Recently, Germany penned an agreement with the United Kingdom to accelerate the global hydrogen market.

“The project demonstrates the economic viability of hydrogen solutions in the transport and industry sectors and also supports the state of Baden-Württemberg in its efforts to become a model region for the development of hydrogen refueling infrastructure,” Luc Graré, head of Central and Eastern Europe at Lhyfe, said in a statement. “We very much welcome the fact that the state and the city of Schwäbisch Gmünd want to implement their ambitious goals for a hydrogen economy based on renewable energies and that we are taking this step together. With the construction of the production plant, we are making an important contribution to the goals of the federal government.”

Offshore hydrogen production

Lhyfe is the first company globally to have already started offshore hydrogen production, with a production capacity of up to 400 kilograms a day, the company said. In 2021, it inaugurated the world’s first large-scale green hydrogen production plant linked to a wind farm in France. The following year, the first offshore pilot platform for the production of green hydrogen was inaugurated at the port of Saint-Nazaire. 

“Through cooperations like this, Schwäbisch Gmünd is developing into a model region for the nationwide development of a hydrogen and filling station network as a central supply infrastructure,” Richard Arnold, major of Schwäbisch Gmünd in Germany, said in a statement. “Schwäbisch Gmünd is part of the model region of the state of Baden-Württemberg and, with the completion of the plant, will then also be the largest hydrogen producer in the state. We are thus creating a basis for marketing the land in Aspen, which will enable the companies to produce climate-neutrally.”

Lhyfe is also looking into the reoxygenation of the oceans.