Two RWE Projects Selected For EU Innovation Fund Grants

Renewable energy player RWE has said that two of its innovative projects have been pre-selected for funding by the EU Innovation Fund. The fund is claimed to be one of the world’s largest programmes for demonstrating innovative low-carbon technologies.

These are RWE’s FUREC project in the Netherlands and an offshore wind farm off the German coast, in whose project company Nordsee Two GmbH RWE holds a 51% stake. The two projects are among a total of 17 projects selected by the EU Innovation Fund for the preparation of grant agreements, which is now underway.

The EU Innovation Fund subsidises breakthrough technologies for renewable energy, energy-intensive industries, energy storage and carbon capture, use and storage. Although, the quantum of grant remains undisclosed by RWE.

Roger Miesen, CEO of RWE Generation, said, “We are delighted that two of our projects have been selected for funding. This shows that we can make an important contribution to decarbonising the European economy with our projects. With the grants that have been envisaged, we are now developing the two selected projects at full speed in order to bring about final investment decisions quickly and to press ahead with the necessary approval procedures.”

FUREC Project

Under the FUREC or ‘Fuse Reuse Recycle’ project, RWE wants to produce hydrogen for the chemical industry and thus contribute to making production processes more sustainable. Household waste from Limburg in the Netherlands is to replace natural gas. The FUREC project supports companies, scientific institutes and the province in their efforts to develop Limburg into a centre for the circular economy and a hydrogen hub between the Dutch seaports and the German Ruhr area.

RWE says that a plant is being built in Limburg to process residual materials into raw material pellets. These will then be converted into hydrogen which will be supplied to fertiliser plants. In this way, the industrial park’s natural gas consumption is reduced by more than 280 million cubic metres annually. This corresponds to the annual consumption of about 200,000 households.

According to RWE, this will help cut about 500,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. The CO2 released during hydrogen production can be captured and stored or possibly used as a raw material in the future.

Nordsee Two Project

RWE is also developing an offshore wind farm off the German coast with a planned grid capacity of 433 MW in the north of the island of Juist and is scheduled to start commercial operation in 2026. The company aims to demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility of producing hydrogen at sea. RWE informs that an electrolyser is planned to be integrated into the offshore wind farm for this purpose. The green hydrogen could then be used for vessel fueling and to supply emergency power to the offshore substation or wind turbines.