The Hollandse Kust Noord(HKN) offshore wind farm in the Netherlands has generated its first kilowatt of electricity. The project is being built by CrossWind, a joint venture between energy giants Shell and Eneco, which won the right to develop the project in August 2020, beating competitors such as Woxu. The site, 18.5km offshore, has a planned installed capacity of 759MW and will install 69 Siemens Gamesa SG 11.0-200 DD turbines.

This is a "zero subsidy" electricity price project, but more noteworthy is that CrossWind will explore the wind + light + hydrogen production model on this project.

In 2021, Shell, Eneco and retail giant Amazon agreed to buy half of HKN's electricity generation, while the remaining half will be used for Shell's planned hydrogen production project.

The project is named "Holland Hydrogen 1", Shell plans to build a set of near-term 200MW, long-term 400MW electrolytic water hydrogen production equipment in the port, from the HKN project's offshore booster station to draw power, the production of hydrogen will be transported to Shell's refinery 40 kilometers away by pipeline for crude oil desulfurization. Some of the hydrogen may also be used in hydrogen-powered trucks.

Meanwhile, earlier this year CrossWind partnered with a technology company called Oceans of Energy to develop megawatt-scale floating offshore PV projects in the waters within the wind farm. Oceans of Energy has already installed test products offshore the Netherlands. Shell believes that the combination of wind, photovoltaic and hydrogen production will be a model for future offshore renewable energy projects. Editor/Xu Shengpeng