How can a concrete hydrogen value chain become a reality in Salzgitter? A joint project at the Salzgitter Hydrogen Campus has recently been researching this. The Office for Regional Development has approved a total of around 262,000 euros in funding for the city of Salzgitter as part of the Salzgitter Aid for Economic Structural Change.
Dr. Ulrike Witt, State Commissioner for Regional Development: "Green hydrogen at affordable prices - only then will the hydrogen economy become a reality! We are delighted to be able to provide funding for another strategically important start-up project."
"Together with the council and members of the state parliament, I fought long and hard for the state of Lower Saxony to grant the city of Salzgitter 50 million in state funding to overcome its multiple challenges. Economic structural change is one of the key challenges facing the city of Salzgitter with its major industrial companies. Even when the cooperation agreement was signed by all those involved, I encouraged them to move quickly. The speed with which the projects in the Salzgitter Hydrogen Campus are being driven forward is impressive," says Mayor Frank Klingebiel, expressing his satisfaction. "It's not just Salzgitter that will benefit from the results, but the entire region," he adds.
Marc Grünewald, Head of Business Development Power and New Energies at MAN Energy Solutions, comments on the projects: "Salzgitter is particularly impressive due to the large number of customers for green hydrogen. The high demand and wide range of possible applications are a clear advantage of the location. However, it is also crucial that these customers are supplied with large quantities of green hydrogen at low cost and across the board. Our study will show these paths and thus lays an important foundation for establishing an efficient supply of green hydrogen in the Salzgitter region."
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Herrmann, Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST, adds: "As an internationally recognized partner for applied research, we are closely networked in industry and science. In the joint project led by MAN Energy Solutions and Fraunhofer IST, we want to identify the economic conditions and availability of hydrogen in the Salzgitter region and support the transformation of the economy in model projects by creating a cross-sector knowledge base for hydrogen technologies."
"As a local energy service provider, one of our approaches as part of the study will be to take a look into the future in order to consider the further development of a possible necessary infrastructure so that the electricity to the electrolysis plants and the resulting green hydrogen can be transported to future consumers from an economic point of view and the heat generated in the conversion process can be used sensibly," explains Rainer Krause, Commercial Managing Director of WEVG Salzgitter.