TotalEnergies, Air Liquide to produce renewable hydrogen at Grandpuits
TotalEnergies and Air Liquide plan to produce low carbon hydrogen at the Grandpuits zero crude platform in the Paris region, the French major said on November 22.
Under a long-term contract committing TotalEnergies to purchase the hydrogen produced for the needs of its platform, Air Liquide will invest over €130mn ($133mn) in the construction and operation of a new unit producing hydrogen.
This unit will partly use biogas from the biorefinery built by TotalEnergies and will be delivered with Air Liquide’s carbon capture technology CryocapTM.
TotalEnergies said that the project will prevent emissions amounting to 150,000 metric tons/year of CO2 compared with the current processes. TotalEnergies’ biorefinery will use the unit’s hydrogen to produce sustainable aviation fuel.
The new hydrogen production unit, with the capacity to produce over 20,000 mt/yr will produce hydrogen that is partly renewable, thanks to the recycling of residual biogas from the Grandpuits biorefinery, in place of the natural gas that is normally used.
Commissioned in 1966, Total's Grandpuits-Bailly-Carrois refinery was for a long time the only refinery in the Paris region. In September 2020, TotalEnergies launched a project to convert the site, in line with its strategy to become carbon neutral by 2050.