- Last week, his Majesty the King of the Netherlands performed the official ceremony to start work on the construction of a national hydrogen network in the Netherlands.
- The ceremony took place on the building site of Gasunie subsidiary Hynetwork Services in the port of Rotterdam, where the contractor, Visser & Smit Hanab, will build the first section of the national network.
From 2030, the national hydrogen network, which will cost around 1.5 billion euros to build, will connect the Netherlands’ major industrial areas to each other and to Germany and Belgium. The Dutch government commissioned Gasunie last year to develop the hydrogen network.
Hydrogen plays a crucial role in making energy supply more sustainable. For example, in making industry and heavy transport more sustainable. One of the preconditions for the development of a hydrogen market is that there needs to be infrastructure in place for the transport and storage of hydrogen. By being the first country in Europe to have its hydrogen infrastructure in place, the Netherlands can become an important hub for renewable energy.
The first section of the hydrogen network, a stretch of over 30 kilometres, will be built in Rotterdam and will connect the Tweede Maasvlakte industrial park to Pernis. It is expected to be operational in 2025. The national network will ultimately span 1,200 kilometres and consist largely of repurposed existing natural gas pipelines. The network will be linked to large-scale hydrogen production facilities, import terminals at seaports, and companies in the Netherlands and abroad that will be switching to hydrogen to make their operations more sustainable.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
Source: Gasunie
