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.

RWE secure funding
for the Nordsee
Two offshore
wind farm which it is developing together with its Canadian partner Northland
Power (49%). The wind farm with a planned grid capacity of 433 MW
is to be built north of the island of Juist and is scheduled to start commercial
operation in 2026.

In addition to deploying
the latest model of wind turbines (min 15 MW each), RWE and Northland Power
 aim to demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility of producing
hydrogen at sea. For this purpose, an electrolyser is planned to be integrated
into the offshore wind farm. The green hydrogen could then be used for
vessel fueling and to supply emergency power to the offshore substation
or wind turbines.

The other project to secure funding was RWE’s FUREC (Fuse Reuse Recycle)
venture.  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.

For FUREC, a plant
is being built in Limburg to process residual materials into raw material
pellets. These will then be converted into hydrogen in another plant in
Limburg’s Chemelot industrial park, which will be supplied to OCI Nitrogen’s
fertiliser plants. In this way, the industrial park’s natural gas consumption
is reduced by more than 280 million cubic metres annually. RWE claims the
CO2 released during hydrogen production can be captured and stored
or possibly used as a raw material in the future. The hydrogen can be marketed
locally in the Chemelot industrial park or transported to industrial companies
in Rotterdam and the Ruhr area via a corresponding hydrogen infrastructure.

“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,” said Roger Miesen,
CEO of RWE Generation.