Shell, Eneco to Enter Dutch Tender for 759 MW Offshore Wind Project

Through their JV with CrossWind, Shell and Eneco will be participating in the tender for the 759 MW Hollandse Kust (Noord) offshore wind farm.

Shell Nederland, a subsidiary of the Royal Dutch Shell, has announced its plans to create a green hydrogen hub in the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The firm aims to produce green hydrogen on the Tweede Maasvlakte using green electricity from wind power, with this wind power preferably coming from the proposed 759 MW Hollandse Kust (Noord) offshore wind farm. Through their joint venture CrossWind, Shell and Eneco have announced that they will be participating in the tender for this wind farm.

“The Netherlands is working hard to increase the amount of renewable power generation, for example by building offshore wind parks on a large scale. This approach affords the Netherlands an excellent position to become the hydrogen hub for Northwest-Europe, made possible due to its unique location and offshore wind potential in the North Sea and its extensive transport network of gas pipelines,” the firms stated in a joint release.

As per the firms, the Netherlands will need both green electrons and green molecules in order for the energy transition to succeed. And that green hydrogen can play an important role in the decarbonisation of industry, which currently uses large volumes of grey hydrogen. Replacing this hydrogen produced from natural gas with green hydrogen contributes to the decarbonisation of the energy system. A second important use of the hydrogen will be in heavy-duty transport, where due to the heavyweight of batteries the application of batteries for electric propulsion is limited.

Shell and Eneco are participating in the tender for Hollandse Kust (Noord) through their joint venture CrossWind. Together with the CrossWind consortium, they plan to have Hollandse Kust (Noord) operational in 2023 with an estimated installed capacity of 759 MW, generating an estimated 3.3 TWh per year. This is sufficient renewable power to supply more than 1 million Dutch households with green electricity. The wind farm will be located approximately 18.5 kilometres off the Dutch coast near the town of Egmond aan Zee.

“With CrossWind, we want to work towards the realisation of the first offshore wind farm with innovations with regards to system integration,” said Kees-Jan Rameau, Chief Strategic Growth Officer at Eneco. ”In addition to the energy the wind farm can generate, the park offers many opportunities to (further) develop innovative techniques that can be of added value in accelerating the energy transition. By combining the knowledge and expertise of Shell and Eneco, we can make full use of this potential. Moreover, this wind farm contributes to Eneco’s ambition to help every household and company in the Netherlands to switch to a sustainable and clean energy supply.”

If the current plan will materialise, the hydrogen plant on the Tweede Maasvlakte will be built on a site especially designated by the Port of Rotterdam (2 GW conversion park) with Shell as the launching customer. In this plant, green hydrogen will be produced through electrolysis – a process in which water is split into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity. The hydrogen plant will have a capacity of around 200 MW. The final investment decision for the hydrogen plant has not been taken yet.

“The energy transition calls for guts, boldness, and action,” says Marjan van Loon, President-Director of Shell Nederland. “We are proud that together with our partner Eneco we are participating in the tender to build Hollandse Kust (Noord). Through the connection of this wind farm to our possible future green hydrogen plant in the Port of Rotterdam, we want to develop a new value chain together with our partners and governments – from wind to hydrogen – to create a green hydrogen hub. We regard this as a stepping stone for the recently announced NortH2-project. These projects fit well with our aspirations to provide more and cleaner energy to our customers, at home, on the go and at work.”