‘We are building the Smart Hydrogen Hub, for and with M4H’
Rotterdam is the ultimate place to realise innovative CO2-neutral solutions. But it goes without saying that this doesn’t just simply happen. Companies need financial support in order to be able to jointly form Europe’s Hydrogen Hub. That’s why the City of Rotterdam has allocated part of its Sustainability Transition Budget to hydrogen projects. Meet applicant Mare Straetmans (founder of Platform Zero) and project director Leonoor Hiemstra (Smart Hydrogen Hub Foundation). These Hydro Generation members are working on a large test facility with green hydrogen at the M4H business park together with Rotterdam based partners.
An installation for the production of green hydrogen, with a smart energy network and all the associated infrastructure, will be built on the M4H business park (Merwe-Vierhavens) during the course of this year. The intention is for this large test facility to gain more experience with the production, processing and delivery of this green fuel. Platform Zero, Battolyser Systems, the Port Authority, Sunrock, the City of Rotterdam and other partners are working together on the Smart Hydrogen Hub, an important piece of the puzzle for the energy transition.
Leonoor: “We are building the Smart Hydrogen Hub, for and with M4H. This local character is exactly what makes it so fantastic. The green hydrogen we’re going to be making here could possibly instantly be used by our neighbours at the Stadshaven Brewery in the future.” Mare: “Or used to refuel Watertaxi boats and the Shipping and Transport College training ship along the waterfront.”
Perfect area
M4H is a perfect area for this project. Mare: “There’s already a great deal of energy transition industriousness here and you can find innovative companies and businesses all over the site. We have a list of more than 100 startups and scale-ups which can play a role in this project. Many of these companies are already based in the area, or can otherwise easily get here. The building where we and Platform Zero are based is a collective building specifically for startups in the energy sector.”
The location of the business park certainly also plays a role. There’s plenty of space, it’s easily accessible by both land and water, it’s a port, but it’s also in the city, so the metro will take employees very close to their place of work. Perfect conditions for some good old pioneering.
As big as one sea container
The hydrogen production plant will be the heart of the Smart Hydrogen Hub. This uses the innovative Battolyser technology. Leonoor points outside: “The ‘electrolyser’ will be over there on the lawn.” This first hydrogen plant at M4H will be about the size of a sea container and will be able to produce about 20 kilos of green hydrogen per hour when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. Mare: “Of course this is relatively small compared to what large companies could achieve. But green hydrogen is hardly being produced on a large scale as yet. Shell is currently working on a green hydrogen plant on the Maasvlakte 2 which is 200 times larger than ours. They will therefore soon become the first major European producer.”
The small plant at M4H is now a significant scale-up for Battolyser and the Port of Rotterdam. Battolyser will soon be making multiples of what is currently being produced in green hydrogen. Mare: “And we’re constantly learning as we go, working towards four or five installations. From different suppliers, as they all work with different technologies. It will be interesting for our test facility to see if there will also be a difference in processing, transporting and using the output from those installations.”
Green, greener, greenest
The design for the first production unit, which will require hydrogen compression in addition to the Battolyser, has already been completed. Leonoor: “We hope to be able to produce and deliver from here in the summer of 2025. We’ve already devoted attention to how we’re going to be delivering the hydrogen. After all, producing hydrogen is one thing, but you obviously have to be able to store it somewhere too. We’ll be doing that in a ‘tube trailer’, a large trailer containing cylinders. You can then extract the hydrogen from those cylinders on site, using it like a kind of filling station for local or small-scale customers.
Or you can drive the trailer to wherever it’s needed. To Rotterdam the Hague Airport, for example, where a filling station for green hydrogen will be realised. From an ecosystem perspective, we would ideally mainly like to supply our green hydrogen to local customers in M4H. But given the challenge of aligning all the different initiatives in time, we’ve already started with the principle of selling tube trailers. You simply can’t wait until everything is right and perfectly arranged. But it’s our ultimate aim to provide our local ecosystem partners with green hydrogen in the future.”
The importance of visibility
The Smart Hydrogen Hub won’t just be turning M4H into a green hydrogen laboratory, but certainly also a showcase. An important goal for Mare: “Hydrogen, and especially green hydrogen, is still very new. It’s great to see excellent practical examples of how to deal with it and what can be done with it. This test is going to make that tangible. That’s important for the participating startups and scale-ups, the Port of Rotterdam, large companies looking over our shoulder, investors and students. We particularly need the latter group. We can create the most amazing energy transition innovations, but we certainly won’t get very far without people to implement them. So we need to get as many young people as possible excited about our industry.”
See first, then invest
A hydrogen plant, hydrogen storage, space for employees, places for customers and a smart energy network with all kinds of green energy for M4H: that’s quite an investment. Mare: “It will indeed take a great deal of money. That’s why we applied for the Sustainability Transition Budget. Our participants are mostly startups, who simply wouldn’t be able to bear the costs themselves.” Leonoor adds: “The new technology has resulted in enormous development costs, but the market still needs to be developed too. That creates financial uncertainties. The costs come before the benefits and these costs are high. Finding the right balance between scaling up and being and staying financially healthy is always a challenge for startups. Subsidies are currently still indispensable for green hydrogen technology and market development.”
Headed for the great unknown
Looking ahead in a new, innovative industry like green energy is no easy task. Mare does dare to look beyond phase 1 of the Smart Hydrogen Hub: “We’re starting with the Battolyser and the associated energy network for M4H with all possible forms of green energy. We’ll continue to experiment and grow from this starting point. Until we’ve managed to become the ultimate place for all collective green hydrogen knowledge and expertise for the Port of Rotterdam.”
Leonoor: “I can’t predict where we’ll be in 10 or 20 years’ time. And this isn’t actually particularly important either. The most important thing is that we think about it together. That we do something together.”
The Hydro Generation
Allow yourself to be inspired by other Hydro Generation entrepeneurs and read all about why they think Rotterdam is Europe’s ultimate Hydrogen Hub!