We looked at a range of configurations. Essentially, its driven by cost. It’s the cheapest way to produce hydrogen from offshore floating wind.
Production of hydrogen offshore has a couple of advantages. Firstly, it avoids losses of energy associated with transmission of electricity via high voltage cables to shore over large distances. Secondly, decentralised offshore hydrogen production at commercial level enables a phased approach whereby production from the first unit installed can begin whilst the rest of the field is developed incrementally. At commercial scale, Dolphyn, compared to other alternatives provides the lowest cost production of hydrogen at all distances away from shore.
Dolphyn is based on large scale hydrogen production – providing opportunity to scale the size of windfarms for limitless low carbon hydrogen production.
It is important to us that safety is at the forefront of everything we do. Hydrogen is not a new material, it has been being produced and handled safely by experts for years. The Dolphyn process is based on combining technologies, that already have high technology readiness levels, and are already being used in offshore wind and hydrogen generation. This means they’ve passed through rigorous engineering and health and safety assessments.
The key design principle is to use the proven technologies for Dolphyn to provide confidence in the reliability and availability of the relevant system or equipment, preferably those with a good track-record from previous use. The component parts of the concept, whilst emerging technology, are all at high technology readiness level providing a good degree of confidence that the solution will work at scale. The development work that has been carried out in the last 5 years has focussed on providing the necessary evidence needed to deploy all of the primary systems on a full-scale unit.
No, it doesn't, the technology is focussed on the production of hydrogen and is complementary to wider decarbonisation efforts and energy generation projects.
Its an early technology, so the price point is still a bit high. We need support from government but it’s a large scale technology, so we expect the cost to come way down. We’ve already seen that kind of cost reduction curve from offshore wind.
As an energy vector, hydrogen provides good energy storage capacity and it can be suitably stored in a way that electricity cannot. It avoids grid constraints and it enables power and gas networks to be coupled.
Dolphyn offers unique cross sector opportunities. In addition to hydrogen, and floating offshore wind there are synergies with the oil and gas industry particularly in mooring supply, platform assembly and onshore and offshore processing.
For the single demonstrator scale project we are able to tap into existing capabilities from other industries, particularly oil and gas. However, as we scale up we will need to work with suppliers to enable larger project to be built in the future.
We’ve had really good engagement from a range of different customers including gas networks, heavy industry and heavy goods vehicles, amongst others.
Dolphyn continues to work collaboratively with stakeholders, including governments and regulators, to identify a safe, appropriate and environmentally sensitive practice to secure hydrogen consent. In Addition, Dolphyn has benefitted from 5 years of development involving specialist expertise from both the renewable energy and oil and gas industry sectors.
Dolphyn is a flagship project and through scalability it will provide meaningful contributions to the UK’s hydrogen ambitions.
Electricity is generated by the turbine, powering the hydrogen production equipment. The hydrogen is then taken back to shore via pipeline.
We are always pleased to hear from those that are interested and supportive of our ambitions and vision for Dolphyn. If you’re interested in a career in hydrogen or sustainability and want to be a part of this exciting innovation journey, please get in touch.
