Green and renewable hydrogen producer and supplier Lhyfe and renewable energy developer Source Galileo have entered into an agreement to jointly develop commercial-scale green and renewable hydrogen production units in the UK and Ireland, with plans under way for multiple units.

The companies are collaborating to establish green hydrogen production units in the UK, which will be similar to Lhyfe’s recently inaugurated facility in Occitanie, in southern France.

The energy firms are also exploring opportunities in Ireland, focusing on identifying consumers and assessing factors such as grid availability, power supply, land accessibility and planning requirements.

Under the agreement, Lhyfe and Source Galileo will combine their expertise to generate and supply the environment-friendly gas to a variety of customers across industry and transport, and help them decarbonise their operations, they say.

By working together, the companies believe their economies of scale can accelerate the roll-out of green hydrogen, and meet the increasing demand from companies aiming to reduce their reliance on natural gas and other fossil fuels, the companies say.

Initially, they will focus on using electricity from onshore renewable sources. However, in the longer term, they could harness the enormous offshore wind potential in the UK and Ireland, which would help overcome electricity grid constraints, they point out.

The companies' goal is to deploy production facilities powered by renewable energy and provide a boost to the net-zero goals of the UK and Ireland.

“Green hydrogen can support deep decarbonisation, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, such as heavy industry, including chemicals and steelmaking. It can also be used for heavy transport, including buses, trucks and construction or logistics vehicles, among others.

“Green hydrogen, produced from water and electrolysis, can also in the long term replace the more than 3 000 TWh of hydrogen currently produced from oil, gas and coal throughout the world,” the companies say.

The UK government has doubled its low-carbon hydrogen production target to 10 GW by 2030, with at least half of this expected to come from green hydrogen.

Ireland published its National Hydrogen Strategy in July 2023, outlining plans to develop 2 GW of hydrogen production from offshore wind farms in the country by 2030.

“We believe the development of a hydrogen economy alongside electricity is critical to the energy transition. Both the UK and Ireland have hydrogen strategies. Our partnership with Lhyfe provides an onshore and offshore platform, and is a major step forward to assist in delivering government hydrogen targets,” says Source Galileo CEO Kevin Lynch.

“With Lhyfe, we are geared towards decarbonising challenging sectors, particularly industrial processes, through the use of green hydrogen. Hydrogen’s role as an energy carrier will be pivotal in overcoming emerging constraints in current electricity grids, ensuring a supplemental and additional supply of clean energy to industries beyond the electricity grid’s current capabilities,” comments Source Galileo hydrogen business development director Stirling Habbitts.

“This agreement with Source Galileo represents an exciting opportunity to drive the clean energy transition with large-scale green hydrogen production. At Lhyfe, we are moving at pace to enable decarbonisation in our communities and unleash the extraordinary potential of renewable energy across the UK and Ireland. Green hydrogen is one of the key solutions to reaching net-zero, and it is available to be deployed today, thereby improving national energy security while turbo-charging local economies,” adds Lhyfe chief business officer Taia Kronborg.

Meanwhile, Lhyfe specialises in producing green and renewable hydrogen through water electrolysis, with its units being powered by renewable electricity.

The France-based multinational’s first plant at Pays de La Loire has been operating since the second half of 2021, with two more sites inaugurated in Occitanie and Brittany in December. A further five sites are currently under construction or extension throughout Europe.

Lhyfe aims to achieve a green hydrogen production capacity of 200 MW by the end of 2026 and 3 GW by the end of 2030.

Further, Source Galileo was founded to accelerate the roll-out of large-scale renewable energy projects as part of the energy transition.

It has a pipeline of about 10 GW of offshore wind and hydrogen projects under development in the UK, Ireland and Norway, and is also developing onshore battery storage and solar projects.