This collaboration is intended to identify the port areas and facilities capable of accommodating R&D prototypes and being utilized to try out innovative solutions. The partnership also focusses on the identification of the industrial requirements involved in the construction of the equipment to be used to produce offshore hydrogen on a mass scale, and on the port infrastructures necessary for the production, launching and integration of those future items of equipment. Lastly, the two parties will deliberate together on how best to bring ashore the renewable hydrogen mass-produced at sea, so as to define the requisite industrial and logistical requirements for the reception and injection of the gas into the land-based network.
Commenting on this partnership, Matthieu Guesné, CEO of Lhyfe, said: “The development of offshore hydrogen production is the next major challenge awaiting us. Following the integration and inauguration of our Sealhyfe platform at the Saint Nazaire port facility, we are going to pursue our collaboration with this port facility, which possesses a great deal of related expertise, to accelerate the development of solutions that will make it possible to decarbonize mobility and industry on a massive scale, in all coastal regions.”
Olivier Trétout, Chair of the Management Board of Nantes-Saint Nazaire Port, added: “Green hydrogen is a sector of the future in which we have great faith, as do many of the Regional Community’s industrial and institutional players. The Port of Nantes ‒ Saint Nazaire has the credentials to be a major port facility for the accommodation of that sector of activity. The partnership agreed with Lhyfe constitutes an essential first stage in the process of identifying the requirements for the large-scale deployment of renewable hydrogen production.”