Following Weisweiler in the Rhenish mining area, the company is now pressing ahead with plans for such a plant at a possible second site, at the Gersteinwerk power plant in Werne in the southern Münsterland region. A hydrogen ready CCGT with a nominal installed capacity of around 800 MW is under consideration for the Gersteinwerk site.
Following “intensive technical soundings”, RWE says it has commissioned an Italian–Spanish consortium consisting of Ansaldo Energia (Italy) and Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain) to execute the project. Work on gaining planning approval for the project is already underway.
Nikolaus Valerius, CEO RWE Generation SE, said that, with the seeking of planning approval for a hydrogen ready gas-fired power plant at the Gersteinwerk site already underway, “we are taking proactive measures to keep the chance of completion by 2030 open. With the construction of the new power plant, we are ready to contribute to green security of supply and thus secure the coal phase-out by 2030. This requires policymakers to quickly make some key decisions. We can only make a final investment decision once the connection of the site to a hydrogen network has been secured and the framework conditions allow for a commercially viable operation of the power plant.”
The German government has announced that its power plant strategy will soon create a regulatory framework for tendering hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants. RWE says it intends to participate in these tenders.
According to the recently presented plans for the construction of a hydrogen infrastructure in Germany, the Gerstein plant in Werne could find itself close to a hydrogen transport pipeline in the future.
At the time of commissioning, the hydrogen ready Gerstein plant should be able to use a fuel mix with at least 50% hydrogen content, and it is intended to run it entirely on hydrogen at a later stage.
