The German authorities are investing in the reconstruction of gas pipelines, including the continuation of Nord Stream, Opal, but there are no customers yet. Berlin is counting on the future, while enterprises do not see any sense in clean fuel, since it is three times more expensive.
The Gascade operator has completed the conversion of the 400-kilometer part of the Opal gas pipeline into a hydrogen pipeline. It runs from Lubmin on the Baltic coast to Bobbau in Saxony-Anhalt.
"Gas pipelines are also very well suited for transporting hydrogen. The main difficulty was that we were doing this for the first time," Gascade spokeswoman Karina Gever told Tagesschau.
The German government has approved the program and within 7 years it is planned to commission 9,040 kilometers of hydrogen pipelines in the country. The main hydrogen system will cost 18.9 billion euros. And hundreds of millions of euros have already been invested in Opal. However, so far no interested party has signed a contract.
"At the moment, hydrogen prices are prohibitively high, which means that we will have to pay three times more than for natural gas," business consultant Mathias Dig explained the situation to DW***.
According to the expert, no energy-intensive company in the steel, chemical or glass industry can afford to pay three times more, because end users will not want to do it either.
"This means that the investments we are currently making in the hydrogen network have neither buyers nor sellers at the moment," said Matthias Dig.
Berlin's plans are based on the fact that some of the hydrogen will be produced in Lubmin, where Opal begins, and some will be imported from abroad - through LNG terminals, which will be converted to hydrogen. Whether it will work out is unknown. It is known that the EU is going to organize a large-scale production of green hydrogen in Africa. But so far the projects have not started.
*An organization performing the functions of a foreign agent
**An organization whose activities are considered undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation
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