Prototypical initial application of hydrogen in the field of process heat applications

Germany's largest cluster for the decarbonisation of industrial process heat applications in SMEs is being established in Gelsenkirchen. ZINQ is a founding member of this initiative and, with Power2ZINQ, is demonstrating how it is done: a prototypical initial application of hydrogen in the field of process heat applications is being implemented at the Gelsenkirchen site.

To decarbonise industrial process heat, ZINQ relies on green hydrogen in addition to renewable electricity. In order to replace the carbon-rich energy source natural gas with climate-friendly hydrogen in the long term, ZINQ has been working since 2016 on the technical preparations for converting the plant in Gelsenkirchen. At the same time, ZINQ is committed to ensuring that hydrogen becomes acceptable for industrial process heat and that energy-intensive SMEs can obtain hydrogen at competitive prices in the future.

To this end, ZINQ, together with 16 other energy-intensive companies from the municipal port, is founding the Gelsenkirchen Climate Port Initiative. The goal is to rapidly expand the hydrogen infrastructure and provide green hydrogen in order to drive forward the economic transformation towards climate neutrality. A bottom-up study commissioned by the initiative confirmed the importance of company-specific transformation pathways that take green hydrogen into account for the decarbonisation of process heat.

The pilot project Power2ZINQ is an important building block on the path to carbon zero. At the same time, ZINQ also aims to provide impetus for the around 300,000 large industrial combustion plants throughout Germany. Because if all of them were to convert their systems to hydrogen, around 40 million tonnes of CO₂ could be saved every year.