Seid receives 8 million kroner from Ulla-Førrefondet

On 15 February, Ulla-Førrefondet announced its decision to grant Seid 8 million kroner.

With the Ulla-Førrefondet pre-financing in place, Seid, who has joined forces with Lyse and NORCE, will use Energy Transition Norway as the platform to realize the development, facilitation, and recertification of existing gas infrastructure at Risavika.

The project will turn the old Risavika gas center into a test center for hydrogen production and hydrogen and CO₂ value chains.

It started with ColdSpark

The plans for the project started with the verification of Seid’s groundbreaking technology of ColdSpark which produces hydrogen and carbon in solid form, without the production of CO₂.

Today, 300,000 tonnes of hydrogen are produced in Norway, a production which traditionally is associated with large CO₂ emissions and high energy costs.

– In contrast to electrolysis, the ColdSpark process uses methane as one of two input factors, the natural gas that is 25 times more harmful to the climate than CO₂. Thus, the production process becomes carbon negative, as it is broken down into hydrogen and carbon in solid form - two very useful resources that are created by using a pulsating, electric field to break the bonds between them in the methane molecule (CH4), explains Terje Hauan, Chief Technology Officer at Seid.

The process does need some electrical energy as an input factor as well, but about seven times less than the added electrical energy needed in hydrogen production with electrolysis.

After this technology had been verified with the help of 30 million grant from the EU, Seid presented the ColdSpark concept for Energy Cluster Norway which immediately saw its potential to contribute to the acceleration of the energy transition.

Together with Lyse and NORCE, Seid started to work to develop the concept of Risavika Hydrogen Hub following a cluster hydrogen workshop series in April and May of 2022.

The project will bring together hydrogen value chains together with other value chains in the Risavika region – an ideal spot for the development of such synergies.

Risavika has “everything”

With natural gas from Kårstø, one of Europe's largest export hub for natural gas, as well as an LNG plant, sufficient electrical power, and thermal energy, there are already several actors working with hydrogen, CO₂ handling and value chains linked to these resources, established in the former Risavika Gas Centre NORCE acquired from SIVA in June 2022.

– NORCE has for decades developed green biotech processes and are currently rebuilding the Risavika facility to support the upscaling and piloting of new technologies converting CO₂ and H2 to sustainable proteins for feed, climate-neutral chemicals and sustainable aviation fuels, sais Hans Kleivdal, deputy EVP at NORCE and responsible for the new Risavika Technology Park.

– Our facility at Risavika offers specialized facilities to develop, test and connect process elements to new gas-based value chains, so this a perfect place for companies like SEID, Lyse, Agri-e and Gas2Feed who is in the forefront of the green transition, says Kleivdal.

Terje Hauan sees the NORCE facilities at Risavika as catalyst connecting the partners, to unleash a regional potential to create even new opportunities. Lyse already has the distribution of natural gas to the Risavika Technology Park and the LNG plant, and is currently developing CO₂ value chains from bio resources.

Agri-e, who has set up its test lab for the production of hydrogen from natural gas, and UiS which is testing their hydrogen turbines at the NORCE facility, are two of several other players who are already in place, working on connecting hydrogen and CO₂ in the area.

– Therefore it became clear to us that there is a local need for a hydrogen hub in Risavika and now Seid, NORCE, and Lyse are leading the way by doing what everyone else is talking about - establishing Risavika Hydrogen Hub, says Hauan.

A natural hub for offshore logistics

Shipping and energy companies will demand zero-emission vessels in the coming years, and there are numerous offshore logistics companies with activities based in Stavanger that will need to refuel their vessels along the way.

With several additional user cases of industrial hydrogen in immediate proximity to the production facilities, it only adds to the rationale that this project can contribute to moving the Stavanger into the green shift, where industrial use of hydrogen produced without CO₂ emissions can be part of the solution.

Testing, testing

The next step is to get the industrial actors in place, the collaboration partners who will be involved and realize this project. It will be done in the form of a workshop series under the auspices of the cluster where we will discover who will realize the ambition to produce 50 kilos of hydrogen per day.

• Hydrogen producers who want to test their own technology

• Security actors who can take care of the security aspect

• Consumers of hydrogen

• Transporters of hydrogen

The Risavika Hydrogen Hub concept was born during the Hydrogen workshop series of Energy Transition Norway. ETN, and the role the cluster has taken to bring together regional actors and create an arena for conversation and exchange of thoughts and ideas, led other actors to also contact Seid, who received a "follow-up of positive energy" for the project.

The first arena for coming up with preliminary conclusions on this feasibility study will be the H2 Conference Norway, where Terje hopes to be able to present the basic angles and assumptions about what the Risavika Hydrogen Hub will look like.

Small-scale hydrogen production in autumn 2023

Seid's goal is to have the first production of hydrogen in Risavika, 50 kilos of hydrogen a day. This is a matter of very small-scale production, it corresponds to 1500 kWh of energy, which again corresponds to the energy two cars have in the tank.

Terje Hauan, therefore, sees the award as the first stepping stone for Rogaland to have the opportunity to develop one of the important sustainable energy solutions for the future and contribute to Stavanger being able to maintain its position as the Energy Capital.

Read more about the cluster project here: Risavika Hydrogen Hub