Wilo has introduced a modular hydrogen power plant, which it is now offering to the market in a modular arrangement for varying power demands.
The H2Powerplant is already in use at Wilo’s German headquarters, Wilopark in Dortmund, and the manufacturer is claiming it as a world-first in a live production environment. The product that will now go to market is available in four different sizes that will be able to generate power equal to the annual demand of either three, five, or 20 households.
The company is also seeing it as a step-change in green hydrogen production, when currently only 1% of the world’s hydrogen is currently classed as ‘green’.
The system uses electrolysis to convert renewable energy generated from solar, wind and hydroelectric sources into green hydrogen. When it is needed, a fuel cell can then be used to convert the hydrogen back into electrical energy and the waste heat is either used in the interconnected system for heating, stored or converted into cooling on site.
This system can also be used to support new or existing combined heat and power systems that have been designed to work with a blended hydrogen mix – meaning it also has the potential for retrofit applications, Wilo notes.
David Williamson, Sales and Marketing Director at Wilo UK, said:
Green hydrogen is fundamental for achieving the climate protection goals agreed in Paris. Ultimately, this game-changing technology will enable companies to accelerate the migration to clean energy from existing infrastructure without having to start from scratch. For example, companies using gas or CHP systems that will operate with a blended gas mix that can utilise hydrogen from the H2Powerplant and reduce carbon emissions within existing infrastructure.
He added that the company has already received enquiries from a number of UK large energy users who wanting to implement the system as part of their own net zero strategies or when bidding for sustainability-driven tenders.
The system in Dortmund has now been running for a year after originally being intended to use it as an emergency power supply. As the project evolved, greater power potential was realised and the Powerplant was able to power a wider number of site operations, including lighting, the EV charging system and part of the heating.
