TES pushes Wilhelmshaven green energy hub development

Belgian hydrogen company Tree Energy Solutions (TES) is initiating the acceleration of its plans to develop the German port of Wilhelmshaven into a world-scale green energy hub.

TES says it is the first major hydrogen company supplying long-term non-intermittent carbon-neutral clean energy at a large scale. Its Wilhelmshaven project started in 2019.

With green hydrogen at its core, the Wilhelmshaven green gas terminal is carbon-neutral and transitional. This is a green energy hub, accommodating LNG as an intermediate source of energy supply given the current energy crisis.

The company initiated the fast-tracking of its green gas terminal, part of the Green Hydrogen Hub in Wilhelmshaven, to secure alternative and sustainable energy for Germany.

This will provide for alternative energy security for Germany and Europe whilst accelerating the growth of green gas imports over time.

The project will include six independent tanks combined with six ship-berths.

“We are now planning further work to ensure an operational start of phase 1 by winter 2025 at scale. We are also willing to constructively accommodate any alternative gas importers (…). TES welcomes participation from other parties on the condition that it accelerates the project and does not jeopardize the long-term clean and green energy ambitions that are core to the TES DNA. TES also believes that managing the current crisis should be done in such a way that long-term climate targets will and do not need to be compromised. The TES-Wilhelmshaven project is a unique project that can exactly do this,” said Paul van Poecke, managing director at TES.

“The TES-Wilhelmshaven project is unique in its ability to achieve Germany’s and Europe’s plans to decarbonise in a sustainable way at an industrial scale whilst carefully and prudently navigating the current energy crisis. We want to boldly drive forward energy transition with the aim of making Germany’s energy supply CO2-neutral. This will be achieved by developing Wilhelmshaven as a green energy hub. The latest developments do not interfere with the energy targets to be met by 2045. Already Bundeskanzler Scholz mentioned how Germany sees to support the development of an import terminal in Wilhelmshaven with hydrogen potential.”

“The primary objective of the EU’s decarbonisation policy is to achieve the fastest possible reduction of CO2 emissions at the lowest possible cost,” said Otto Waterlander, CCO at TES. “Our Wilhelmshaven project will account for 10 per cent of the total annual primary energy demand of Germany by 2045, approximately the annual energy consumption of 43 million households in the country.”

TES Green hydrogen will be primarily produced using solar, wind and hydropower in countries with rich renewable energy sources. After this, CO2 will be added to make green CH4 which will be used as the ‘energy carrier’.

This will then be transported to Wilhelmshaven using a specially constructed fleet of ships.

At Wilhelmshaven, the green CH4 can be converted back into green hydrogen, with the resulting CO2 being captured and returned to the producing countries by ship in a continuous closed-loop system, this way we guarantee that the CO2 never leaves the cycle and we avoid GHG emissions.

In the initial phase of 25 TWh per year of green gas import, more than half a million tonnes of hydrogen can be produced and imported in Wilhelmshaven. This will rise to 250 TWh per year and more than 5 million tonnes of hydrogen in the final stage.

This corresponds to one-tenth of the total annual primary energy demand of Germany. The energy output of the project means that an essential milestone of the German and European hydrogen and climate protection strategy will be achieved.