LEAG, Germany’s second largest energy supplier, is planning a power-to-X project to produce hydrogen, store waste heat, generate electricity and deliver hydrogen to buses. The plant will also have a 1,000 MWh thermal storage.
Germany’s second largest energy supplier LEAG plans to produce hydrogen through a power plant at its lignite open pit in Upper Lusatia, Germany.
The company has submitted an approval request to the Brandenburg state environmental agency, and the project, called the Innovative Storage Power Plant, is currently in a public consultation process. Immission control is a major concern for the companies concerned.
LEAG’s power-to-X facility stores electricity from wind and solar power in two parallel systems. It uses a 40 MW electrolyzer to produce 700 kg of hydrogen per hour. The company’s goal is to convert hydrogen back into electricity through a 945 MW gas and steam turbine combined power plant.
The storage power plant will also have a thermal storage with a capacity of 1,000 MWh, which is integrated into the gas turbine system to optimize energy production. The German engineering firm Afry is responsible for the design of the project. In the initial expansion phase, the H2-ready turbine converts 53% of the hydrogen into electricity in the natural gas mixture. LEAG plans to switch the turbine to run on pure hydrogen at a later stage.
According to Afry engineers, the system is designed to rely solely on thermal storage from day one, enabling a completely COâ‚‚-free power source. In addition to the fact that hydrogen is produced by burning electricity in a gas turbine, it can also be converted into electricity in fuel cells. The system stores hydrogen up to 400 bars, and local buses can refuel directly at the facility.
Lusatia’s lignite open pit is turning into a large energy park for wind power, solar electricity, battery storage and power-to-X. The goal is to have 7 GW of production capacity by 2030, and solar power alone to reach 7 GW by 2040.
LEAG also plans to commission a 500 MWh storage facility in Lusatia for US manufacturer ESS’s Boxberg power plant using iron-reduction flux storage technology.
