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Mining Gold Russia & CIS

Project initiators are Rusatom Overseas, Russian Railways and TMH. In 2019, Rusatom Overseas, Russian Railways and TMH signed the agreement on cooperation in the organisation of railway communication with the use of hydrogen fuel cells trains. Within this project Rusatom Overseas will supply hydrogen, fuel cells, and other key equipment. A test site to implement the agreement between Rusatom Overseas, RZD and TMH will be located in the Sakhalin region.

Recently, the Government of the Sakhalin region has been considering the establishment of an entire hydrogen cluster on the island that will allow to export hydrogen to Asian countries. The core of the cluster will be a research and development centre of hydrogen energy that will be based in the Sakhalin State University. The project will be implemented with the participation of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to experts, Sakhalin has natural gas, reserve capacity of the energy system, and a large wind potential necessary for the successful implementation of this project.

Gazprom intends to develop its own technologies to produce methane-hydrogen mixtures and hydrogen from methane without carbon dioxide emissions. The company also wants to build the infrastructure necessary for the product transportation. In December last year, Gazprom announced that it would create a special company to implement projects in this segment – Gazprom Vodorod (Hydrogen). The company also has plans to build a hydrogen production plant in Germany, near the Nord Stream-2 exit to the shore. The choice of location in this case is not accidental: at the end of February, it became known that Gazprom and the German Wintershall were working together on a technology for producing hydrogen using methane pyrolysis, and the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce created a special working group.

A pilot project to construct infrastructure for the development of hydrogen energy technologies and electrolysis production is to be implemented at Kolskaya NPP. It will help solve the energy surplus challenge in the Murmansk region. In the next two‑three years Rosatom intends to use about 1.5 MW of nuclear power plant capacity for electrolysis production, within five to seven years – about 4 MW, and by 2030 – 500 MW. The state corporation estimates that 1 MW of electric capacity allows to create around 200 cubic meters of hydrogen per hour (about 158 tonnes per year). According to Rosatom, this volume of hydrogen will be enough to implement, for example, pilot regional transport programmes in large cities.

Rusnano and Enel Russia intend to implement Russia’s first project on green hydrogen production at a wind power plant in the Murmansk region. It is planned to produce 12 thousand tonnes of hydrogen per year and to export it to the EU; the investment is estimated at $320 million. The base for production will be the Enel Russia wind power plant (WPP) with a capacity of 201 MW that is under construction in the Murmansk region (commissioning – December 2021, but delays are possible). The general company is building it under a power supply contract for renewable energy sources (DPM, it guarantees an ncreased return on investment through the wholesale energy market).

In the next two months, the state corporation Rosenergoatom is planning to complete the preparation of a feasibility study for the supply of hydrogen from Russia to Japan. In September 2019, in Tokyo Rusatom Overseas and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan signed the agreement on cooperation in the field of joint development of a feasibility study in 2020-2021 for a pilot project for the hydrogen export from Russia to Japan. A pilot export project considers the possibility of producing hydrogen for the Japanese market by electrolysis. Rosenergoatom prepares a feasibility study for the supply of hydrogen from Russia to Japan together with the Japanese authorities and Kawasaki company.