Power-to-gas: Green hydrogen from renewable energies for industry, mobility and households

Energie Steiermark supplies its customers with 100% renewable energy from hydro, wind, and solar power. However, these generation sources are highly dependent on the weather, as they require sun, wind, and water. So, when the weather doesn't cooperate, other solutions are needed.

Like power-to-gas! Hydrogen is produced from renewable energies with the help of electrolysis. In this process, water is split into water and oxygen using the ME450 PEM electrolyzer from Quest One with a nominal output of 1MW. Up to 450kg of hydrogen are produced per day. The hydrogen produced can be used directly in vehicles as a CO₂-free energy carrier and fed into the grid as green gas without further conversion.

The "Renewable Gasfield" production plant was built under the project management of E-Steiermark in Gabersdorf in southern Styria and is located on a 10,000 square meter site. Here, an existing biogas plant is combined with a new, 6,000 square meter large-scale photovoltaic plant, thus saving up to 5,200 tons of CO₂ annually. Currently, the industrial company Wolfram Bergbau und Hütten AG - a subsidiary of the globally active Sandvik Group - takes 70 tons of the green hydrogen annually for its energy processes. The surplus hydrogen is stored for later use. Energie Steiermark's current plans therefore also envisage supplying the hydrogen-powered buses planned for the provincial capital of Graz in the future. The amount of energy produced in Gabersdorf is sufficient for about 4 million kilometers or 50 buses.

The hydrogen is also converted into green natural gas in a CO₂-neutral manner by feeding in raw biogas (methanation). The energy-rich gas is then fed into the existing natural gas grid and used directly or stored for the long term. Hydrogen thus enables a sustainable, emission-free, and closed energy cycle. Gabersdorf is therefore a "triple green source": for industry (Wolfram), for mobility (buses) and for households. With the 168,000 kilograms of hydrogen produced here per year, a hydrogen car can travel 20 million kilometers, which corresponds to about 500 circumnavigations of the earth. 60 single-family homes can be heated for a year with the green natural gas produced annually.