Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park wins H2Eco Award

VNG AG

Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park is this year's winner of the H2Eco Award as a flagship project for the energy transition. The prize was awarded yesterday, 23 April 2024, as part of HANNOVER MESSE 2024.

Cornelia Müller-Pagel, Project Manager of Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park and Head of Green Gases at VNG AG, and Prof Dr Hartmut Krause, Managing Director of the & Education Science De-partment at DBI - Gastechnologisches Institut gGmbH Freiberg, accepted the award on behalf of the project's seven consortium partners on the stage of the Public Forum Hydrogen + Fuel Cells EUROPE.The H2Eco Award is organised by the German Hydrogen Association (DWV) e. V. and Deutsche Messe AG and is under the patronage of Economics Minister Dr Robert Habeck.

Project Manager Cornelia Müller-Pagel was delighted to receive the award: "We are incredibly grateful for this award. Since the ground-breaking ceremony last year, we have already achieved significant milestones, such as Germany's first supply contract for green hydrogen and the topping-out ceremony for the 30 MW large-scale electrolyser building. In the meantime, the first value-added stage, the wind farm with 8 wind turbines and an output of 50 megawatts, is already nearing completion. This award shows us that we are on the right track and emphasises the importance of the project for the future of green hydrogen in Germany. We would also like to take this oppor-tunity to thank all of our partners who are passionate about Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park. The H2Eco Award is a further incentive to continue on our path with all our enthusiasm and energy."

Prof Dr Krause and his team from the DBI are providing scientific support for Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park. He was also delighted to receive the award: "The huge interest in, and support for, our pro-ject inspire us in our day-to-day project work on the way to realising Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park. As a real-life laboratory for the energy transition, Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park is a beacon and has al-ready inspired many other hydrogen projects. It is a unique opportunity for us to test new technol-ogies and solutions under real conditions and at industrial scale. We want to get forward-looking concepts for a secure and climate-neutral energy supply with green hydrogen off the ground in Germany as quickly as possible."

The H2Eco Award is endowed with prize money of EUR 5,000 and is presented to a project that makes a relevant energy industry contribution to the ramp-up of the hydrogen economy. The prize money will go to initiatives that are seeking to tackle the issue on a small scale. This year, the Heinze Academy in Hamburg will receive the donation. It offers a certified training course for Ukrainian refugees to train them as skilled workers in the hydrogen industry.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Bad Lauchstädt Energy Park is a production-scale real-life laboratory for the intelligent production of green hydrogen and its storage, transport, marketing and use. This real-life laboratory is testing the entire value chain of green hydrogen on an industrial scale for the first time. A 30 MW electrolysis plant uses renewable electricity from the nearby wind farm to produce green hydrogen. Temporarily stored in a salt cavern specially created for this purpose, the green hydrogen can be fed into the hydrogen supply network for the chemical industry in Central Germany via a converted gas pipeline and used for future urban mobility solutions. The real-life laboratory contributes to research into tomorrow’s green hydrogen technologies. bringing them to market maturity – for a technologically strong and future-oriented hydrogen-based economy in the Central Germany region and successful intersectoral energy integration throughout the Federal Republic. To this end, the project partners are investing a total of 210 million euros, which includes funding of 34 million euros from the 7th Energy Research Programme of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) as a ‘real-world laboratory for the energy transition’.

Press contact

Katharina Wilsdorf
e-mail: presse@energiepark-bad-lauchstaedt.de
phone: +49 341 2310-9033
 

Press picture

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Energiepark Bad Lauchstädt gewinnt H2Eco Award 2024

The project consortium around the Bad Lauchstädt energy park is delighted to have won the H2Eco Award 2024. In the photo (from left to right): Dr. Jochen Köckler (Deutsche Messe AG), Udo Philipp (Staatssekretär im BMWK), Dr. Jörg Nitzsche (DBI), Cornelia Mülle-Pagel (Projektleiterin des Energiepark Bad Lauchstädt und VNG AG), Prof. Dr. Hartmut Krause (DBI – Gastechnologisches Institut gGmbH Freiberg), Dr. Ralf Borschinsky (ONTRAS), Xenia Papst (Elektrolyse Mitteldeutschland Gmbh und Uniper), Falk Zeuner (Terrawatt) und Werner Diwald (DWV). © ONTRAS