Mar-2023

Raffinerie Heide: a refinery reinvents itself

How Raffinerie Heide is driving innovation and pioneering the development of green hydrogen through its HySCALE100 and Westküste 100 initiatives.

Sandra Niebler
Raffinerie Heide GmbH

Article Summary

Climate protection and the energy transition are currently the big topics throughout Europe and, therefore, the top political issues in Germany. The challenge is to keep global warming below 2°C while providing sufficient energy to satisfy demand from domestic consumers and industries.

Consistent decarbonisation of energy systems and sustainable raw materials are needed to achieve this. Energy-intensive industrial companies, such as Raffinerie Heide, play a key role.

Raffinerie Heide: into a green future with innovative ideas
Raffinerie Heide GmbH is Germany’s northernmost oil refinery, located in Dithmarschen, Schleswig-Holstein, close to the North Sea. It has an annual processing capacity of 4.5 million tonnes of crude oil, producing traditional petroleum products such as petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel. It also produces light heating oil and base materials for the chemicals industry. Raffinerie Heide is one of the most complex refineries in the world and among the best in terms of utilisation and availability, thanks to its strict standards of care in relation to maintenance.

In partnership with others, Raffinerie Heide is one of the German refineries that politicians have entrusted with the task of finding economically viable and industrially feasible answers to the climate and energy security issues. It has been dynamically aligning itself for a new, greener future for several years now and is striving to actively help shape the energy transition in Germany. As in all decarbonisation projects, the key element in northern Germany is green hydrogen.

Multitalented hydrogen
Hydrogen is multitalented. The most common element in the universe is not just vital for countless chemical processes but is an ideal and versatile secondary source of energy or energy carrier. As such, hydrogen plays a crucial role in integrated energy for the electricity, mobility, heat, and chemical sectors. Hydrogen can replace fossil energy sources in numerous applications, and experts have long considered it the key element in the energy transition. The German federal government also recognised this when they passed the National Hydrogen Strategy in June 2020.

Hydrogen is multitalented. The most common element in the universe is not just vital for countless chemical processes but is an ideal and versatile secondary source of energy or energy carrier. As such, hydrogen plays a crucial role in integrated energy for the electricity, mobility, heat, and chemical sectors. Hydrogen can replace fossil energy sources in numerous applications, and experts have long considered it the key element in the energy transition. The German federal government also recognised this when they passed the National Hydrogen Strategy in June 2020.

The National Hydrogen Strategy provides an operational framework for the future production, transport, storage, and use of green hydrogen. The strategy aims to establish hydrogen technology as a core element of the energy transition. The German federal government has given clear regulatory signals needed to support the construction of hydrogen plants with a total capacity of 5 GW by 2030. However, so that hydrogen does not have to carry a carbon rucksack during the decarbonisation of the energy system, grey has to become green.

Schleswig-Holstein: an ideal location for a green hydrogen economy
Along with Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein is one of the Northern German states to have joined forces in the HY-5 green hydrogen initiative at the start of 2020. The goals of the initiative are to make Northern Germany the strongest region for green hydrogen in central Europe and to complete the value chain for green hydrogen. Together, the federal states want to build synergies for communication between the locations.

The current ‘OECD-Bericht zur Regionalentwicklung: Metropolregion Hamburg, Deutschland’ started in the autumn of 2020 and confirms that Northern Germany is particularly well suited to developing a green hydrogen economy. The region has unique advantages as a location for producing renewables and a large potential market for purchasing green hydrogen, especially with the local industrial companies. The five federal states share a high level of experience and expertise in sustainable technologies and energies, as well as a high-performance infrastructure. In Germany, pioneers in wind energy have played a major role in shaping technical progress in this area. The expertise gained will be incorporated into the production and commercial use of green hydrogen in close collaboration with partners from industry, science, associations, and politics. Research on hydrogen technologies has been carried out in the region for 30 years, and initiatives at state level have long established important networks that advance the topic economically, scientifically, and politically.

Whether and how the use of this green hydrogen can succeed on an industrial – and economically viable – scale is currently being researched by

Raffinerie Heide together with other partners in two innovative, high-profile projects: Westküste 100 and HySCALE100.

Westküste 100
With Westküste 100, Raffinerie Heide – in a consortium of 10 partners – launched the first hydrogen project of the Reallabore der Energiewende (real-world laboratories for the energy transition) programme from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in August 2020. The five-year project aims to use renewable energy from photovoltaics, onshore, and offshore wind in Northern Germany to produce green hydrogen to decarbonise heat, transport, and industry, avoiding around one million tonnes of carbon emissions per year. The project will receive funding of €36.5 million from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.