State-owned company and transmission system operator Gasgrid Finland signed a project agreement to develop a new piece of the regional hydrogen infrastructure network on Friday.
Pipelines of up to 5,000 kilometres will connect the Baltic Sea area and Central Europe by 2030.
A project called the Baltic Sea Hydrogen Collector (BHC), together with earlier launched projects is said to complement the EU hydrogen strategy and REPowerEU plan and support the EU climate targets, such as the EU Green Deal and Fit for 55 package.
The Baltic Sea Hydrogen Collector (BHC), launched Friday by Gasgrid, the Swedish gas transmission system operator Nordion Energi and two Danish companies OX2 and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, plans to connect mainland Finland and Sweden and Åland island to Germany. Connections may also be built to Swedish Gotland and Danish Bornholm islands.
According to Gasgrid, the aim is to use the offshore wind potential in the region and ”create an efficient, harmonised and integrated hydrogen market in Europe”.
By building a route from production to use, the BHC is hoped to boost investments in the hydrogen value chains and enhance decarbonisation and green industrialisation in the Nordics, Baltics, and Central Europe.
Two days earlier, on Wednesday (14 December), Gasgrid Finland, Elering (Estonia), Conexus Baltic Grid (Latvia), Amber Grid (Lithuania), GAZ-SYSTEM (Poland) and ONTRAS (Germany) signed a cooperation agreement on Nordic-Baltic Hydrogen Corridor, a hydrogen infrastructure from Finland through the Baltics and Poland to Germany.
Once finished, green hydrogen produced in the Baltic Sea area could be transported to supply consumption points and industries along the corridor and Central Europe.
The corridor would also improve energy security and reduce fossil energy dependency. A pre-feasibility study of the project will be conducted next year.
Once completed around the end of the decade, the Baltic Sea Hydrogen Collector and the Nordic-Baltic Hydrogen Corridor will be connected to each other and the Nordic Hydrogen Route, a project in Bothnian Bay between Finland and Sweden launched in April by the Finnish Gasgrid and the Swedish Nordion Energi.
(Pekka Vänttinen | EURACTIV.com)
Source: euractiv.com
