Two-year study aims to develop project using wind energy to generate hydrogen offshore

Researchers at the University of Malta are investigating the possibility of producing green hydrogen out at sea by using energy generated by floating wind turbines.

Using renewable energy to produce hydrogen is often prospected as a clean solution to fuel the energy-hungry developing economies while fighting climate change.

The project also foresees the use of an innovative piston technology developed by the University of Malta to store excess energy generated by the wind turbines.

The storage system helps overcome the intermittent nature of wind power thus ensuring constant availability of energy for the electrolyser process that has to take place to extract hydrogen from seawater.

The two-year project called HydroGenEration is being carried out by the University of Malta and its spin out company FLASC B.V., based in the Netherlands, and is funded by the Energy and Water Agency under the National Strategy for Research and Innovation in Energy and Water.

Researchers believe the target end-users of such a project would be the maritime industry, including seagoing vessels, leisure craft and other hydrogen-reliant marine systems.

Engineer Robert Farrugia explains that the energy storage technology, which goes by the name Floating Liquid-piston Accumulator using Seawater under Compression (FLASC), was developed at the University of Malta and can be applied in an offshore environment regardless of the sea depth.

He says FLASC is an ideal option for interfacing with an offshore wind power plant and for implementation in the Mediterranean Sea, which is characterised by deep waters.

“The FLASC energy storage system smoothens the variable wind power supplied to the offshore hydrogen plant thus improving operational hours for the electrolyser system. Furthermore, hazards associated with energy storage systems such as batteries are avoided.”

Green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy sources such as wind power and only oxygen is released as a by-product. Generating hydrogen from wind power requires several different processes starting from energy-hungry reverse osmosis plants for seawater desalination and purification, which will then feed the electrolyser process.

After electrolysis, a compressor is then used so that the hydrogen can be feasibly stored for onsite use or transportation to end users.

The HydroGenEration project team is conducting a review of current and emerging technologies’ status, looking at local prospective sites, constraints and opportunities, identifying stakeholders and conducting numerical modelling to investigate the feasibility of offshore green hydrogen production.

Researchers say that combining hydrogen production with offshore wind generation makes use of natural resources such as wind and seawater that are freely available.

“Additional benefits also include co-location, ease of supply to end-users such as those in the maritime sector, and decreased costs. Hydrogen can be transported through pipelines with significantly less losses and simpler technologies,” they argue.

Research is being conducted by Oleksii Pirotti, Diane Scicluna, Robert N. Farrugia, Tonio Sant, Daniel Buhagiar and Jessica Settino.