Low-carbon hydrogen is not only necessary to decarbonize process industries such as steel, fertilizers or heavy mobility. When produced by water electrolysis, it can also serve as a flexibility tool for electricity transmission network managers, who are also responsible for the correct balance between supply and demand at all times. It can be used to store renewable or nuclear electricity produced in surplus – today in liquid or gaseous form, under pressure; tomorrow underground, particularly in salt cavities.
Conversely, the electrolysers can be stopped at the request of the network manager when consumption exceeds production. What we call erasure. Every year, the network manager RTE launches calls for tenders from industrialists who can reduce their demand to replenish its demand reserve (which was 3.9 GW for the year 2024). The Nantes start-up Lhyfe, a pioneer in the production of green hydrogen from renewable sources, announced that it would respond to this call for tenders for 2025, in partnership with the specialized broker Energy Pool, with a reserve of a cumulative power of 30 MW.
30 MW of secondary demand response reserve
From the beginning of 2025, Energy Pool will initiate load-shedding operations for Lhyfe on wholesale markets (NEBEF), then opening the way towards valuation on the secondary reserve market, i.e. that of electrical units that can turn off in 30 seconds – the primary reservation regarding installations that can be shut down in less than 15 seconds. Concretely, this means that RTE will be able to stop, when necessary, the PEM type electrolysers from the American Plug that Lhyfe has installed on five sites in France. The sites of Buléon in Morbihan (5 MW), Bessières in Haute-Garonne (5MW), two other undisclosed sites as well as that of Le Cheylas (10MW) under construction in Isère, are concerned.
«Our electrolysers will thus contribute to the integration of renewables on the network while they should represent 50% of production in 2050, even with the construction of new nuclear power plants.», explains Matthieu Guesné, CEO of Lhyfe. However, it remains to be selected as part of the RTE call for tenders. “We are not sure of winning. And we’re not sure of the prices. The remuneration for erasure is not fixed», Explains the manager of Lhyfe.
In any case, it will not be the first time that the start-up has faced challenges in the hydrogen economy: after having been the first to produce hydrogen from salt water and electricity produced by wind turbines. in Bouin, in Vendée, Lhyfe was also a pioneer in the production of hydrogen at sea, on a demonstrator in Le Croisic in Loire-Atlantique.
A pilot in the Baltic Sea
Lhyfe will now attempt to demonstrate that this production of green hydrogen at sea from salt water can also be used… to reoxygenate the seas and oceans damaged by pollution and global warming – the electrolysis of water releasing twice as many oxygen molecules as hydrogen. Instead of releasing it into the atmosphere, this oxygen could be released into the sea.
With its Finnish counterpart Flexens and Stockholm University, Lhyfe must set up a demonstrator as part of the BOxHY project to combat suffocation in the Baltic Sea. Lasting six years, it aims to observe the impact of the injection of oxygen on an ecosystem. “We will start on a restricted area already selected from 19 sites», Indicates Matthieu Guesné. For the founder of Lhyfe, which since its creation has had the objective of producing hydrogen at sea at the foot of wind turbines, this other positive externality is just as, or even more important, than the decarbonization of our economy.
Source: www.usinenouvelle.com
