Offshore hydrogen transportation through re-used natural gas pipeline on the North Sea

On 6 October, NOGAT and NGT received a Certificate of Fitness for the transport of green hydrogen through existing pipelines at sea from Bureau Veritas Inspectie & Certificering. The NGT and NOGAT pipelines are conveniently located near planned wind farm (search) areas and can transport 10-14 GW of green hydrogen. The advantage of reusing existing pipelines is that the roll-out from demonstration projects to large-scale production of green hydrogen can take place much faster. The pipes, the landing on land and the connection with the backbone or other countries are already there. This saves costs and on top of that, it also has a considerably smaller impact on the environment because no new coastal areas or vulnerable nature such as dunes and the Waddenzee have to be crossed for the landing.

Today, both parties announce that they will jointly research scenarios for creating an offshore pipeline system before 2030 that can transport 100% hydrogen in addition to hydrogen in mixed form. The connection to the onshore hydrogen transport system, offshore hydrogen storage and connections with neighboring countries will also be included in the study.

The enclosed paper explains this in more detail and includes some example scenarios.