Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park embodies best practice for green hydrogen with members of the Brandenburg state parliament
- Committee on Economic Affairs, Labour and Energy visits energy park
- Focus on hydrogen projects in Saxony-Anhalt
- Project partners present projects in detail
The Chairman of the Committee on Economic Affairs, Labour and Energy of the Parliament of the Federal State of Brandenburg, Frank Bommert (MdL), and other members of Parliament visited the Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park today as part of an information tour. The trip, during which the participants also visited other locations in Saxony-Anhalt, focussed on the topic of hydrogen. During the almost two-hour visit to the site of VNG Gasspeicher GmbH’s underground storage facility in Teutschenthal near Bad Lauchstädt, the guests had the opportunity to familiarise themselves in detail with the future Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park. The project partners presented the individual components in detail – from the wind turbines to the electrolyser and storage system to transport and utilisation – and answered numerous questions.
“The great interest in our project is supporting the daily work of our project team on the way to realising the Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park. Last but not least, current developments show how important it is that we get forward-looking alternative concepts for a secure energy supply in Germany using green hydrogen off the ground as quickly as possible. This also explains why political decision-makers in other federal states are following our project with interest in order to be able to actively shape the future energy supply in their own states,” explained Prof. Dr. Hartmut Krause, deputy head of the project in the consortium.
The aim of the Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park is to model the entire value chain for green hydrogen in southern Saxony-Anhalt. Renewable electricity from a new wind farm to be erected by Terawatt will be converted into climate-friendly hydrogen by means of a large-scale electrolysis facility from Uniper with an output of around 30 megawatts (MW) and supplied to the chemical industry plants in neighbouring Leuna via a 20-kilometre gas pipeline operated by ONTRAS that is being repurposed. In addition, vital preliminary work is to be carried out to be able to temporarily store this green hydrogen in a specially equipped, almost 180-metre-high salt cavern of the VNG gas reservoir rom 2026. The project has a total investment volume of around EUR 140 million and is being scientifically supported by the DBI.
About the Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park project partners:
Terrawatt Planungsgesellschaft mbH has been developing and implementing turnkey projects in wind power and photovoltaics for over 25 years. With many years of experience as a planner, investor, operator and manager, the company is in a position to comprehensively manage all aspects of project implementation from identifying a suitable location through to the turnkey handover of the systems and the design the individual project phases by its own skilled specialists. In addition, the company is nationally and internationally active as a service provider and technical consultant, and can draw on a wealth of experience from over 300 projects with more than 1,500 wind turbines. More at: www.terrawatt.de.
Uniper is an international energy company with around 12,000 employees in more than 40 countries. The company aims to become carbon neutral in European power generation by 2035. With around 35 gigawatts of installed capacity, Uniper is one of the largest electricity producers in the world. Uniper’s core activities include power generation in Europe and Russia, and global energy trading, as well as a broadly based gas portfolio that makes Uniper one of the leading gas companies in Europe. In 2020, Uniper sold more than 220 trillion cubic metres of gas.
Uniper is also a reliable partner for municipalities, municipal utilities and industrial companies in the planning and implementation of innovative, CO2-reducing solutions as they decarbonise their activities. As a pioneer in the field of hydrogen, Uniper is active worldwide along the entire value chain and realises projects aimed at turning hydrogen into a central pillar of the energy supply architecture. The company is based in Düsseldorf and is currently the third largest publicly listed German energy supply company. Together with its main shareholder Fortum, Uniper is also the third largest producer of zero carbon energy in Europe. More at: www.uniper.energy/de.
VNG Gasspeicher GmbH (VGS) is currently the third largest gas storage operator in Germany with around 2.2 billion cubic metres of active storage capacity. As a wholly owned subsidiary of VNG AG and with its headquarters in Leipzig, VGS has almost 50 years of experience in the construction and operation of underground gas storage facilities and the related technological processes. The core business of VGS is the operation of storage facilities and the marketing of storage capacity. In addition, VGS acts as the technical operator for third-party storage facilities and provides engineering services for its customers in the areas of plant construction and measurement technology. More at: www.vng-gasspeicher.de.
ONTRAS Gastransport GmbH, headquartered in Leipzig, is an interregional transmission system operator forming, part of the European gas transport system. ONTRAS operates the second longest transmission network in Germany with over 7,500 kilometres of pipeline and around 450 network connection points for customer gas transport. As a reliable partner, the company reconciles the interests of transport customers, traders, regional network operators and renewable gas producers. 22 biogas facilities and two power-to-gas plants feed green gases (biomethane, synthetic methane or hydrogen) into the ONTRAS network. More at: www.ontras.com.
DBI – Gastechnologisches Institut gGmbH Freiberg is an independent research institute of the DVGW e.V. (German Association of Gas and Water Industries). It conducts research into the entire supply chain of gaseous energy sources in numerous projects. It has been working on projects for the integration of green hydrogen since 2005. The Institute’s experience ranges from underground gas storage and transport through to hydrogen utilisation technologies in industry and households. More at: www.dbi-gruppe.de.
VNG is a group of over 20 companies active in the European energy industry with a broad, future-oriented portfolio of products and services in gas and infrastructure, and more than 60 years of experience in the energy market. The Group has its headquarters in Leipzig, Germany, employs approximately 1,450 people and generated billed revenue of approximately EUR 18.5 billion in the 2021 financial year. VNG concentrates on four links in the gas value chain: Trading & Sales, Transport, Storage and Biogas. Building on this core expertise in the gas business, the Group’s ‘VNG 2030+’ strategy places a growing focus on new business segments, including ‘green gases’ and digital infrastructure. More at: www.vng.de.
