With the latest 2020 -2030 Infrastructure Outlook of the German Gas TSO’s FNB the number of must read updates on where and with whom gas grids will be doing it in the coming decades is amounting to beyond your usual under-your- beach-tent-umbrella quota!.

Germany could have 1.5 gigawatt (GW) installed capacity of power-to-gas (PtG) facilities by 2025, and up to 7.5 GW by 2030, FNB said. “It is essential to take account of developments at an early stage for gas grid planning, said FNB Gas Chairman Ralph Bahke. “It will not be possible to efficiently decarbonise the industrial, transport and building sectors without making green gases part of the future energy system,” he said.  The final plan is expected to be published by the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) at the end of 2020 folowing a green gas project survey from March 21, 2019 till July 12, 2019.

This study complements the NRW Hydrogen Study that was published on May23, 2019  indicating that, or a GHG reduction target of 55%,, electrlolyzer capacity needed by 2050 amounts to 25-100 GW and it rises to 75-210 GW in the -80% scenarios. For an ambitious climate protection target of -95%, the required electrolysis capacity is 150-250 GW. In North Rhine-Westphalia, particularly large consumer-oriented electrolysers (up to 40 GW) and H2 pipe storage facilities will be installed in the long term in the scenario with a focus on electrification, as demands for H2 in the Ruhr region may be very high because of the steel industry.

With the outcome  latest studies of NL TSO Gasunie and TenneT together with DSO Alliance and the province of North  Holland that came out on July 4,2019 on the necessary infrsrtrucuture adaptations betweeen 2030 and 205o, tindicate that joint collaboration on investmnets in hydrogen and heat networks need to start now as some locatiosn are alreaduy at its limits. Electricity demand is growing rapidly because of electrification of residential heat, more eletric vehciels and increase of numebrof datacentres. on the latest the area of Amsterdam announced a stop of datacentres on July 15, 2019. The study was caried out by CE Delft, TNO/ECN en Studio Marco Vermeulen.

Required Dutch PtG reading is ofcourse the joint Infrastructure Outlook 2050 of Dutch  that came out in February 2019 as prelude to Gasunie’s and TenneT analyssis of the energy transition that they will conduct as taksed by the Dutch government in the Dutch Climate Agreement that was signed on july 11, 2019  by 50 Dutch financial institutions 

Another Dutch “Bicycle” inspired plan of TenneT was announced on July 9, 2019 with the publication of their off shore Hub and Spoke plan for Windpark interconnection and grid management solutions in a multy energy hub. As of 70 to 150 gigawatts by the year 2040 and up to 180 gigawatts by 2045 in the North Sea are being foreseen. As a comparison now barely 4,5 GW has been installed in NL  and 19GW off shore wind overall in the EU.