Germany has asked the UK to consider building a 400-mile hydrogen pipeline under the North Sea to provide it with hydrogen, according to Politico.
Europe’s first economy is looking for ways to get rid of its dependence on fossil fuels. The country’s green vice-chancellor Robert Habeck raised the pipeline idea at a meeting with UK business minister Kemi Badenoch.
Germany is set to become Europe’s largest hydrogen import market in the coming decades, and plans to buy about 70 per cent of the hydrogen it needs to meet its zero-emissions targets from abroad.
The outbreak of war in Ukraine has raised new questions about energy security and dependence on gas from the east. Germany’s climate strategy emphasises fuel as it tries to remove carbon from the industrial sector, including processes that do not lend themselves to electrification.
Industries such as steel, chemicals and cement are difficult to electrify at scale with current technology, and Germany is betting on hydrogen to take over much of the heavy lifting.
Proposals for a hydrogen pipeline to the UK are at an early stage, with ideas being considered including a direct route across the North Sea to Germany or, alternatively, via Norway.
The German government is keen to move towards a feasibility study for the project, while the UK’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero says it is keen to become a hydrogen exporter and wants to understand the options available.
Germany and Norway have already agreed to build such a pipeline by 2030. A joint feasibility study for this project is already underway and is considered the blueprint for the UK pipeline.
In September, UK energy minister Martin Callanan travelled to Berlin to sign a joint “declaration of intent” with the German government, in which both sides pledged to work together to accelerate hydrogen production and trade.
Scotland, with its huge potential to generate clean electricity from offshore wind, could be a major beneficiary of the plan and a potential site for the UK end of the pipeline. In October, the Scottish Government awarded £200,000 in funding to the Net Zero Technology Centre in Aberdeen to investigate “the feasibility of an export route from Scotland to Germany.”
The centre estimates that the new £2.7 billion hydrogen pipeline would be capable of meeting 10 per cent of European demand for hydrogen imports and could be operational by the mid-2030s. A UK government spokesman stated:
“We want to play a key role in exporting hydrogen to other countries, including in Europe, where we see increased demand for hydrogen alongside already established energy trading and interconnection with the UK. We recently signed a Hydrogen Partnership with Germany which will enhance cooperation and share expertise between the two countries. We look forward to agreeing the next steps under the partnership.”
