Hydrogen filling station developed at the h2herten
On Friday, April 27, 2018, Asahi Kassel Europe has started a demonstration project to produce green hydrogen in the h2herten hydrogen centre of competence in Herten. The project simulates the production of hydrogen from wind energy and contributes to the development of a production system for green hydrogen.
Asahi Kasei reinforces its activity in the hydrogen production field in Europe. The Japanese technology company is a leading provider of chlor-alkali-electrolysis systems, which are already used in 126 production facilities in 26 countries world wide.
Based on the chlor-alkali-electrolysis Asahi Kasei have developed an alkaline water electrolytic system, which can be adjusted to changing energy flow by using regenerative energy sources. It also shows high conversion efficiency in the transformation from electricity to hydrogen and can be upgraded to 10-megawatt systems. Hydrogen can thus be produced in just one facility and in large amounts.
On April 27, 2018, Asahi Kasei Europe, the European centre of production of Asahi Kasei, started a demonstration project with an alkaline water electrolyzer in the hydrogen city of Herten, North Rhine-Westphalia. The new facility simulates the production of hydrogen by using electricity made from wind energy.
The joint venture with the hydrogen competence centre h2herten is intended to run for a year and contributes to the development of a system to produce green hydrogen on a large scale.
Green hydrogen is made entirely by using electricity from regenerative energy sources. The project was supported intensively and continuously by the economic development fund NRW.INVEST and its Japanese daughter company NRW Japan K.K. as well as the Energy Agency NRW. Fred Toplak, Herten’s lord mayor, said about the project: „The infrastructure of the hydrogen competence center h2herten offers Asahi Kasei Europe an ideal environment for the building of and the system integration in the alkaline water electrolysis. We see the cooperation with Asahi Kasei Europe as exemplary for other project initiatives with enterprises of future energy solutions to continously build up this centre.“
Hideki Tsutsumi, managing director of Asahi Kasei Europe: „The energy economy in Europe is changing dramatically and new storage technologies as well as production technologies for green energy are strongly in demand. Asahi Cases alkaline water electrolysis is a solution for all these challenges. We are proud to contribute to this change with h2herten as a strong local partner.“
Asahi Kasei Europe expands cooperation with European Partners
In Europe and particularly Germany with its ambitious targets to lower the CO2 emissions, its plans to withdraw from nuclear energy before 2022 and the high percentage of sustainable energy as part of the power supply have not only developed an interest in hydrogen as a form of power storage (power-to-gas) but also an as important resource in the production of replacement fuels (power-to-fuel).
Asahi Kasei has already conducted long-term demonstration projects for hydrogen production in Japan. The alkaline water electrolysis demonstration project in Herten is the company’s second European project, which aims to develop an electrolysis system for the production of green hydrogen.
Already on November 14, 2017 Asahi Kasei Europe announced the participation in the European joint project ALIGN-CCUS. The project was calculated to run for a period of three years and aimed to transform six industrial centres in Europe into economically strong and low-in-CO2 regions by 2025.
Asahi Kasei Europe – as the European centre of the Asahi Kasei Corporation – is part of the work group 4 of the ALIGN-CCUS projects, together with other partners. The focus of the work group 4 lies mainly on the design, the building and the execution of a unique project to separate CO2 and transforming it in an industrial environment.
About the Asahi Kasei Corporation
The Asahi Kasei Corporation is a worldwide technology corporation including the three business areas of Material, Homes and Healthcare. The business sector of Material includes fibres and textiles, petrochemicals, high-performance polymers, high-performance construction materials, consumer goods, battery separators and electronic devices. The business sector Homes offers building materials on the Japanese market and even prefab houses. The business sector Healthcare includes pharmaceuticals, medical technology as well as devices and systems to be used in the acute and intensive care medicine.
With 34,000 employees all over the world, the Asahi Kasei group looks after customers in more than 100 countries.
„Creating for Tomorrow“ — with this slogan the Asahi Kasei group refers to its mission in all its enterprises to help people and technologies all over the world to a better life and living. For more information, please see www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/asahi/en/ for details.
Photo: Asahi Kasei Europe / Mari Kusakari