Wed Dec 7, 2011 12:15pm EST
* Aims to scale up wind power to hydrogen technology
* Awaits funding commitments from partners, German government
By Jeff Coelho
LONDON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - European firms Vattenfall , Total, Siemens and others will join in a project to convert wind energy to hydrogen, which can then be used to power cars or to co-fire power plants, Vattenfall said on Wednesday.
Swedish energy firm Vattenfall has been involved in a pilot project in Prenzlau, 75 miles north of Berlin, where a small hybrid power plant has been using wind power to produce hydrogen since constuction started in 2009.
Together with its partners, Vattenfall wants to scale up to several larger projects, including one in the state of Brandenburg, the company said in a statement.
The consortium, which also involves the German government and several research and environmental groups, is expected to clarify financing details for projects early next year, a Vattenfall spokesman told Reuters.
The total cost could amount to hundreds of millions of euros, Lutz Wiese with Vattenfall's German unit said. But he was unable to specify an exact amount, as one project could involve the construction of a 500 MW onshore wind plant.
"We don't know exactly how much money we are talking here," he said, pointing out that several project studies will be launched early next year and will form the basis of the bulk of financial commitments to be made from the different partners.
If successful, the converted hydrogen gas from wind energy can also be fed into the national gas grid, which could reduce Germany's reliance on gas imports, according to Wiese.
He said hydrogen used to be mixed with natural gas to warm German homes shortly after the second World War, but the technology was phased out because of cheaper oil prices.
STORAGE
Renewable energy is gaining ground, but the main challenge is finding a way to store it. For instance, a wind farm generates electricity for direct input to the power grid, but on windy days with low demand the unused energy cannot be stored.
Electricity generated from wind power can be passed through water, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be stored and used later, in this case, to generate electricity from an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell.
Without storage or more transmission capacity, there is a danger that Germany's wind electricity could overwhelm the grid, explained Oliver Weinmann, head of Vattenfall Innovation.
Germany, the European Union's biggest wind power generator, is set to expand its onshore wind power capacity to 64.5 GW capacity by 2032 from 27.1 GW of capacity installed in 2010, its Federal Network Agency said on Wednesday.
"There is currently no system designed to compensate for the differences between supply and demand within the sector of renewable energy. But this project allows us to find a balance in the system and it's also good business," Weinmann added.
Project partners Total and Siemens were not immediately available for comment.
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