World's first offshore green hydrogen pilot launched off western France

French green hydrogen producer Lhyfe (EPA:LHYFE) on Thursday inaugurated the world's first offshore pilot plant for the production of green hydrogen at sea off the coast of western France.

The platform, known as Sealhyfe, is entering an 18-month test phase at the port of Saint-Nazaire during which initial reference data will be collected and all the equipment will be tested.

After the test phase, the platform will be installed close to BW Ideol's 2-MW floating offshore wind turbine Floatgen which has been operating at the Ecole Centrale de Nantes' SEM-REV site for four years. The platform will be fixed to the ground by a system of anchors and connected to the site's underwater hub.

The electrolyser for the demonstration site was delivered by Plug Power Inc (NASDAQ:PLUG) which designed the facility to be capable of operating on a floating platform.

With electricity from the nearby Floatgen wind turbine, Sealhyfe will have the capacity to produce up to 400 kg of renewable hydrogen per day, equivalent to 1 MW of power.

The pilot plant at sea is designed to meet all the necessary conditions to validate the offshore hydrogen production technology before its large-scale industrial deployment in 2024, Lhyfe says on its website.

"Lhyfe's project is an important and much needed step towards the development of integrated and autonomous renewable power production systems, using floating wind and green hydrogen in this specific instance. Developing such solutions is essential to accelerate the energy transition," said BW Ideol's chief executive Paul de la Gueriviere.

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