The oil company BP, the chemical group Evonik, the long-distance network operators Nowega and OGE and the energy provider RWE are planning to get the hydrogen industry moving. Over a 130 kilometer route between Lingen in Lower Saxony and Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, the first public hydrogen network in Germany is set to be built by the end of 2022, thereby making a contribution to CO2-neutral production. The starting point for the project by the name of GET H2 is a 100 megawatt RWE electrolysis plant in Lingen, which only uses renewable energy to generate the hydrogen.

Nowega and OGE have converted existing long-distance gas pipelines for transport, while Evonik has built additional new pipes. The planned customers include refineries and chemical parks in Lingen, Mark and Gelsenkirchen, but access to the new hydrogen network will be available to all other producers, traders and consumers. In this way, the companies are ahead of the federal government’s planning, as resolutions or concrete plans for a national hydrogen strategy are still conspicuous by their absence.