We are experiencing a time of change. What about the future of the country? What innovative ideas are there? That is the theme of the major SZ focus “Future Germany”. All articles as well as further analyzes and reports can be found on this page.
Christoph Noeres has been with the company for almost 20 years, but he has never experienced a departure like this. His employer Uhde Chlorine Engineers (UCE) from Dortmund actually builds systems that extract pure chlorine from water and salt. This works with electricity in many small cells that can be assembled into meter-long electrolysers. Because chlorine is not only used in swimming pools or the notorious chlorinated chickens, but also as a raw material for chemical plants.
The market has grown solidly over the years, but now completely new opportunities are opening up. UCE is increasingly switching to electrolysers that work without salt and chlorine. They divide water into the elements: hydrogen and oxygen. “My job is to ramp up this business,” says Noeres, division manager for so-called green hydrogen at UCE. “We want to help shape the energy transition worldwide.” It sounds like a new beginning, made in the Ruhr area.
Christoph Noeres has every reason to be in a good mood: the hydrogen production he is responsible for at Uhde Chlorine Engineers is in high demand.
(Photo: Uhde Chlorine Engineers)
In order to understand Noeres’ claim, a look into the future helps: Germany wants to become climate neutral by 2045, other countries want to follow suit. In order for this to happen, fossil fuels must practically no longer be burned: Wind turbines are displacing coal-fired power stations, electric cars are replacing gasoline-powered vehicles, and heat pumps are heating houses without gas. But some processes cannot be converted to green electricity, explains Kilian Crone from the German Energy Agency (Dena). “Green hydrogen is a solution so that such processes can still become climate-neutral.” For example steel works: You can also process iron ore into iron and steel with hydrogen instead of coal. This protects the climate if the hydrogen was previously generated with renewable energy.
This brings you back to Noeres and its electrolysers.
A few years ago they only built very small systems for hydrogen, says the doctor of engineering. “But for the past two years, interest has been increasing by leaps and bounds.” Because more and more countries want to become climate neutral. And the green electricity required for electrolysis is available in ever larger quantities. “We are seeing a wave of projects,” says Noeres, “especially in Europe and North America, Australia and China.”
UCE wants to increase capacity fivefold – and create new jobs in the Ruhr area
At the beginning of the year, the 48-year-old landed an order from Canada: the utility Hydro-Québec is one of America’s largest hydropower companies. UCE is now building an electrolyser near Montreal that will use Hydro-Québec’s renewable electricity to generate 11,000 tons of hydrogen per year. The company speaks of one of the largest green hydrogen plants in the world. Hydro-Québec wants to use hydrogen to produce bio-fuels. The carbon that is also required for this should come from residual waste instead of petroleum.
Such orders create new jobs at UCE in the Ruhr area. “In the past three months alone we have doubled the number of our engineers,” says Noeres. And sales should also grow: “All in all, we want to almost double the number of our employees at the company’s headquarters in Dortmund in the course of the coming year.” Most recently, UCE had a good 400 employees.
With today’s supply chain, the company can already build water electrolysers with a capacity of one gigawatt per year, says Noeres. That would be enough for a good eleven projects of this size in Canada. But UCE wants more: “We want to increase to five gigawatts by 2025.” In addition, production has so far only been project-related, not yet in stock. “We will change that in the coming years,” announced Noeres.
So far, one third of UCE is owned by the Italian company Industrie De Nora – and two thirds by the Thyssenkrupp Group. He has had years of losses, also as a result of the Corona crisis, and actually sees his future in the steel trade and automotive supplier business rather than in plant engineering. Thyssenkrupp is therefore still looking for a way to finance UCE’s growth. The Dortmund subsidiary has good prerequisites to benefit from the demand for water electrolysers, the parent company announced. “We want to use this head start.” One is therefore also examining a possible IPO of UCE. Thyssenkrupp could, of course, still hold a partial stake in the company.
Green hydrogen is still more expensive than climate-damaging alternatives
Despite all the euphoria, it can of course be argued that many industries already need hydrogen today – for example chemical plants or refineries, for example for fuel production. These industries have only been producing hydrogen from natural gas, which is harmful to the climate. The big advantage: This so-called gray hydrogen is much cheaper than the green one from the electrolyser.
Noeres knows how important it is to reduce manufacturing costs: both the price of the systems and the costs of operation. “We want to manufacture faster and easier,” says the UCE manager. “But it is also about reducing electricity consumption during electrolysis.” According to experts, electricity costs make up the largest part of the production costs of green hydrogen. Noeres sees cause for cautious hope there. “The cost of generating renewable electricity is falling piece by piece.” Record projects in the Middle East, for example, now generate electricity for less than two cents per kilowatt hour. For comparison: In wholesale in this country, a kilowatt hour of electricity this year cost an average of between six and 19 cents.
However, wind turbines and solar systems have actually become significantly cheaper and more efficient in recent years. “More and more projects are going in that direction,” says Noeres. In addition, more and more countries are making fossil fuels such as natural gas more expensive in order to create an incentive for climate protection. That, too, can help green hydrogen compete.
The first housing companies are producing hydrogen on a small scale to heat houses
But even if the hydrogen economy gets going, the question remains how it will be structured: Will there be more industrial electrolysers like the one UCE builds, which then feed hydrogen into pipelines, which in turn lead to large customers? Will the hydrogen even be converted into green ammonia, for example, which is easier to ship across the sea? Or will there be more small electrolysers that use wind power, for example, to meet a hydrogen requirement directly on site, without a long line?
Dena boss Andreas Kuhlmann assumes that a hydrogen network – as countries like Germany are planning – will initially not be nationwide. “That is why small, decentralized generation plants are also important.” The energy expert refers to the first housing companies that use excess solar power from roofs to generate and store hydrogen. In winter, this drives fuel cells that generate electricity and heat.
Therefore, there are completely different manufacturers on the market for electrolysers. For example, they rely on smaller systems with special coatings that – depending on the green electricity supply – can be started up and shut down more easily. “But that’s not our field,” says UCE man Noeres. Its systems for large-scale industry are best run continuously: either with electricity from hydropower or a combination of solar during the day and wind at night.
So far, Noeres has not worried about betting on the wrong horse. “There will be more bottlenecks in the green hydrogen market than problems gaining market share.” In any case, experts trust the market for water electrolysers more than those chlorine systems, the old roots of UCE. Hope begins, so to speak, with H – the element symbol of hydrogen.
Germany is to become “number one in the world” in hydrogen technologies, this goal was set by the federal government last year with its national hydrogen strategy. Accordingly, the state wants to promote the generation, transport and use of the energy carrier in this country with a total of seven billion euros.
The strategy provides, for example, that water electrolysers with a capacity of five gigawatts should be built in Germany by 2030. The federal government wants to exempt the green electricity required for this from taxes, levies and surcharges as far as possible – so that green hydrogen does not become too expensive. In addition, the state wants to set incentives so that chemical plants or refineries actually use the beacon of hope. Operators of natural gas pipelines are given the opportunity to reclassify part of their pipelines for hydrogen.
With another two billion euros, Germany wants to promote international hydrogen partnerships with countries such as Morocco and Ukraine, but also Australia and Saudi Arabia. “Even if Germany exhausts all potential of renewable energy, we will probably still need energy imports,” explains Kilian Crone from the German Energy Agency (Dena). “Green hydrogen is an energy carrier that we can import without using fossil raw materials.” In a climate-neutral future, the Federal Republic should, if possible, no longer need any fossil imports. “With hydrogen partnerships, Germany can make the exporting countries a good offer for the future,” says Dena boss Andreas Kuhlmann.