OMNI Features｜Giant German Offshore Wind-to-Hydrogen Ppeject "Desperately" Needs Date for Auction．Subsea7 Secures Contract Worth over $1.25 Billion with Brazil's Oil & Gas Giant．SolarDuck Strengthens Asia Pacific Foothold with Expansion of Tokyo Office

｜Giant German Offshore Wind-to-Hydrogen Ppeject "Desperately" Needs Date for Auction
The AquaVentus initiative centred around the North Sea Island of Heligoland (first presented in 2020) aims at eventually dedicating enough offshore wind power to enable 10GW of electrolysis capacity for the production of green hydrogen in 2035, which would then be transported to land via dedicated H2 pipelines. The initiative counts on the support of over 100 member companies and research institutions – including heavyweights such as RWE, Shell and Siemens Gamesa.

The plan is divided into a series of sub-projects that are supposed to work like stepping stones. They include AquaPrimus2, a two-turbine pilot to prove H2 can be produced directly at sea; AquaDuctus, a project to transport hydrogen directly through pipelines to the German mainland; and AquaSector, a project to produce a first 20,000 tonnes of green H2 from a 300MW offshore hydrogen farm by the early 2030s.

Germany's government has set aside the 1GW SEN-1 zone in the North Sea as a special innovation area for offshore wind and originally had planned to auction it off in 2022. The economics and climate ministry also launched a consultation on how exactly the zone should be split up into various sites, but the government so far hasn't told the sector when or under which mechanism it intends to tender off SEN-1.

Robert Seehawer, Managing Director of AquaVentus sated that it becomes more difficult making a profitable business case for green hydrogen recently due to cost inflation in the supply chain and the rising cost of capital. However, AquaVentus is awaiting the auctions and the plan's backing group "desperately wants to progress, desperately wants to start," Seehawer said, adding that presenting an updated timeline for AquaVentus now makes no sense before the SEN-1 auction materialises. Once "SEN-1 is executed" the roll-out of the AquaVentus plan should be easier.

｜Subsea7 Secures Contract Worth over $1.25 Billion with Brazil's Oil & Gas Giant
Subsea7 has secured a contract worth over $1.25 billion with Brazil's state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras for a field located at 2,000 meters of water depth offshore Brazil. The Búzios field was discovered in 2010. Petrobras is the operator with an 88.99% stake with CNOOC (7.34%) and CNODC (3.67%) as partners. The current development concept for the deepwater field encompasses 11 platforms.

According to the contract, Subsea7 will perform engineering, procurement, fabrication, installation, and pre-commissioning of 102 kilometers of rigid risers and flowlines for the steel lazy wave production system for the Búzios 9 field located some 180 kilometers off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro in the pre-salt Santos basin, with offshore operations scheduled to be executed in 2026 and 2027.

｜SolarDuck Strengthens Asia Pacific Foothold with Expansion of Tokyo Office
Dutch-Norwegian company SolarDuck has expanded its regional office in Tokyo, Japan, to better devote to the Japanese market and accelerate the commercialization of its floating solar technology.

After the company installed what is said to be Japan's first offshore floating solar photovoltaic (OFSPV) power plant on the sea surface. Recently, Solar Duck, in collaboration with the Nautical SUNRISE consortium and supported by €6.8 million from the Horizon Europe program, initiated the development of the world's largest 5 MW OFSPV installation.

Reference:RechargeNews｜OFFSHORE ENERGY