The first 525 kilometers of the new nationwide hydrogen network are to be completed by 2025. The gas network operators involved are confident that this will also work out. "We are currently not aware of any delays in the course of 2025," the industry association Vereinigung der Fernleitungsnetzbetreiber Gas (FNB Gas) told the German Press Agency dpa when asked.
In October, the Federal Network Agency approved the so-called hydrogen core network. By 2032, it is to grow to 9,040 kilometers and connect important hydrogen sites in all federal states: ports, production sites and industrial centers. The total costs of around 19 billion euros are to be borne by the private sector – with state support through the capping of network fees.
In the end, about 40 percent of the lines will be newly constructed. For the remaining 60 percent, existing natural gas lines will be converted. For the first 525 kilometers, 507 kilometers of existing lines will be converted.
Hydrogen pipeline to run from the Baltic Sea to Saxony-Anhalt
The longest converted section of the core network, which is scheduled to be put into operation as early as 2025, will run from Lubmin (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) on the Baltic Sea to Bobbau, a district of Bitterfeld-Wolfen (Saxony-Anhalt) – over a distance of almost 400 kilometers. Another hydrogen pipeline, almost 25 kilometers long, is to be built in Saxony-Anhalt between Bad Lauchstädt and Leuna-Süd – also by converting an existing pipeline.
Longer sections are also to be completed in the west as part of the Get H2 initiative, including a 50-kilometer conversion line between Lingen (Lower Saxony) and Legden (North Rhine-Westphalia) and an 11-kilometer new line that will connect an underground hydrogen storage tank to the grid in 2027. In Lingen, the energy company RWE plans to commission a 100-megawatt electrolyzer for hydrogen production in 2025.
525 kilometers of pipelines are to be operational by the end of 2025
The plan is to make the 525 kilometers of pipelines operational for hydrogen transport. Whether hydrogen will actually be flowing through the pipelines to customers as early as 2025 is something that the pipeline operators cannot yet say. "That is a question for the market, that is, the retailers," says the industry association FNB Gas.
In 2026, the construction of the core network will then continue at a slower pace. According to the industry association FNB Gas, around 142 kilometers of hydrogen pipelines will be completed according to plan, only 2 kilometers of which will be newly built.
In the future economic system, hydrogen produced in a climate-friendly way is to play a central role alongside electricity from renewable sources. As an energy carrier, it will be used in new gas-fired power plants to generate electricity when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. In industry, hydrogen will replace carbon in steel production, for example, thus avoiding large quantities of climate-damaging carbon dioxide.
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