The Nantes-based company Lhyfe provides green hydrogen, that is to say hydrogen obtained without the use of fossil fuels or nuclear electricity.
It has just developed a floating platform capable of producing in the open sea, using electricity from an off-shore wind farm.
Lhyfe already had a production plant in Bouin (Vendée).
"It's a world first," proudly claims Matthieu Guesné, boss of Lhyfe.
Already a pioneer in the field of supplying green hydrogen, that is to say produced without the use of fossil fuels, the Nantes start-up inaugurated this Thursday, in Saint-Nazaire, its first floating platform capable of producing hydrogen in the open sea. Inserted in a robust circular barge, the device consists of pumping water, desalinating it, purifying it, separating its elements using an electrolyser, then harvesting the hydrogen, this ultra-light gas has the advantage of emitting “no C02 once used”.
In the spring of 2023, when "the weather conditions are more favourable", the platform will be positioned off Le Croisic, 20 km from the coast, on the Sem-Rev test site dedicated to marine renewable energies and piloted by the Ecole Centrale from Nantes.
A choice that owes nothing to chance since there has already been a floating wind turbine there for four years, the only one in France, known as Floatgen.
The Lhyfe unit will be connected to it to supply electricity to its equipment.
Production capacity: 400 kg of hydrogen per day.
A volume that can be transported ashore by pipeline pipe.
“The objective is to deploy massively”
“The advantage of offshore wind power is that the wind potential is much greater than on land,” explains Antoine Hamon, deputy director of Lhyfe.
And it is also in our interest to go directly to produce hydrogen as close as possible to these wind turbines.
This makes it possible to reduce the losses of electricity, to reduce the costs of electrical connection [the routing of gas costs much less than that of electricity], to avoid the problem of the land which arises when one wants to create an onshore production unit.
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At this stage, the Lhyfe floating plant is only intended to be a demonstrator, to carry out "final tests in real conditions", in particular that of resistance to heavy swells, and "to demonstrate to all the players that it is possible”.
But, in the medium term, Lhyfe aims for “rapid” development on French and, above all, foreign wind sites.
“The objective is to deploy on a massive scale, with much more powerful platforms, capable of producing 50 tonnes per day”, proclaims Thomas Créach, who is aiming for global off-shore production of 3 GW by 2030-2035.
On land, Lhyfe has already had its own green hydrogen plant in Bouin (Vendée) for a year, producing 300 kg per day.
It works with water pumped from the seaside and electricity from the nearby wind farm.
Its customers are manufacturers, logistics operators and a few local authorities.
“Production is reliable, it is under control.
We know how to do it”, insists Thomas Créach.
Lhyfe hopes to open around ten similar sites in Europe by 2024.
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