Sealhyfe achieves success producing green hydrogen at world-first offshore site

Testing of the offshore hydrogen production project in France is going well.

Lhyfe recently announced that as of June 20th, Sealhyfe, its offshore green hydrogen production pilot project, has successfully produced its first kilograms (kg) of offshore hydrogen. This was achieved after its H2 production platform was towed 20 kilometers (km) out into the Atlantic and hooked up with the SEM-REV power hub, which is connected to Floatgen, BW Ideol’s floating wind turbine.

Sealhyfe can produce as much as 400 kg of hydrogen every day.

Sealhyfe has 1 megawatt (MW) electrolyzer from Plug Power. The electrolyzer is mounted on GEPS Techno’s WAVEGEM floating platform. This platform has been specially engineered to stabilize the green hydrogen production unit at sea.

Now that the milestone of beginning production has been achieved, the Sealhyfe platform has entered the next testing phase. This second phase focuses on generating green hydrogen in offshore conditions. Previously, the platform had undergone eight months of testing at a quay in the Port of Sain-Nazaire. This testing began in September 2022.

During the eight months of testing, Sealhyfe underwent benchmarking tests as well as technology and system optimization. Lhyfe also developed software and algorithm building blocks that are required to remotely manage the site and enable the platform to operate 100% autonomously.

The green hydrogen production platform is now connected to Centrale Nantes’s SEM-REV testing site.

This offshore testing site is located in the Atlantic Ocean, 20 km off the coast of France, and is operated by the OPEN-C Foundation. Sealhyfe is connected to the site’s subsea hub through an umbilical cable that was designed specifically for hydrogen application.

According to Lhyfe, Sealhyfe was towed and connected to the hub, its system was restarted and on stream in 48 hours. Now, the company will reproduce all the tests it performed over the past eight months at the quay, several times, to adequately compare results before conducting additional tests specific to offshore green hydrogen production.

The goal is to achieve reliable offshore H2 production.

To achieve this objective, Lhyfe plans to develop an operating capability that involves, among other aspects, managing the platform’s movements and environmental stresses, as well as validating green hydrogen production software and algorithm.

The company also said that after its initial eight-month testing phase, it updated its specification for all its sites (onshore and offshore) and that all its units will benefit from the operating optimization that were tested in the Sealhyfe pilot project.

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