Good news from Berlin: Real-World Laboratory Westküste 100 selected

Peter Altmaier, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, announced at a press conference today that the “Reallabor Westküste 100” is to be one of the first real-world laboratories of the energy transition in Germany. This gives the consortium’s nine partners the chance to gradually create an industrial-scale regional hydrogen economy and make an important contribution to achieving climate protection goals.

It was good news from Berlin today for the cross-industry partnership comprising EDF Deutschland, Holcim Deutschland, Open Grid Europe, Ørsted, Raffinerie Heide, Heide municipal utilities and thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions - together with the Heide region development agency and the Westküste University of Applied Sciences: the “Westküste 100” project will be one of the economics ministry’s few “real-world laboratories of the energy transition” and will help accelerate the transfer of technology and innovation from research to practice. “Reallabor Westküste 100” will be one of a series of projects to receive funding under the “ENTREE 100” initiative. Others include CAMPUS100, QUARREE100 und KEROSyN100.

The project received special support from the Schleswig-Holstein state government. In the decision-making phase, State Premier Daniel Günther and members of his cabinet repeatedly pointed out the innovativeness of this project in Germany’s most northerly state as well as its huge benefits for Germany’s transition to renewable energies. “With the planned real-world laboratory, unused electricity from wind energy will be converted into green hydrogen and utilized. The west coast is the optimum site for this innovative facility. Energy transition champion Schleswig-Holstein could profit particularly from the real-world laboratory,” says Daniel Günther.

Project work centers on the joint vision of a cross-sector partnership – from the generation of green electricity to the production of synthetic hydrocarbons including the utilization of heat. The partners want to make an active contribution to the transition to renewables and decarbonization. In the coming weeks the consortium will prepare a project description based on the proposal outline to point the way forward for their work from the beginning of 2020.

“With this result we’ve moved a big step closer to our goal to make flying, building and heating more sustainable in the future,” says Jürgen Wollschläger, project coordinator and managing director of Raffinerie Heide, “The “Reallabor Westküste 100” partners are delighted with all the institutions and associations behind our real-world laboratory project.”

Background: The “Reallabor Westküste 100” project

The “Reallabor Westküste 100” research and development project aims to produce green hydrogen from offshore wind energy and utilize the waste heat generated in the process. The green hydrogen will then be used to produce climate-friendly aviation fuels and fed into gas grids. Unavoidable CO2 from a cement plant in Schleswig-Holstein will be used for the production of aviation fuel.

For more information on the project please visit www.westkueste100.de.