Watermeln contributes to colorfully lit Gasunie headquarters during Olympic Hydrogen Week

Watermeln lights up the HQ of Gasunie

The project at the Gasunie in Groningen is part of this week's Olympic Hydrogen Week organized by the Gasunie for its 1,800 employees. As soon as it gets dark, the Gasunie building will be lit up this week in orange by floodlights and lasers. On the building the text 'together we make the Netherlands Mission H2' will be projected. Gasunie wants to draw attention to developments surrounding hydrogen in the Netherlands.

"Hydrogen should start making an important contribution to making our energy supply more sustainable," Michiel Bal of Gasunie told local media. "The advantage of hydrogen is that it does not emit CO2, nitrogen and particulate matter. A lot of developments are already underway, and the Netherlands - with its national grid, North Sea and seaports - could just become the hydrogen country of the world." Next month the first shovel will go into the ground for the construction of the national hydrogen network.

Several top athletes are traveling to Groningen this week to give the "Olympic Hydrogen Week" a boost. They are speaking and presenting themselves in the hall of the Gasunie building, where a large display has been placed around hydrogen and the Olympics. Sports enthusiasts can take a lap on a hydrogen bike and gourmands can enjoy a hamburger, fried on hydrogen, of course.

A 5.5 kW demonstration hydrogen generator is being used for the lighting project. Because the peak demand of the lamps is considerably higher than the demo unit can supply, interim energy storage in a battery is still being used in the pilot phase. This was charged earlier that day with the demo unit. For Watermeln, this is an intermediate step. By the end of this year, the company will have a 200 kW power generator available. "The market is ready for it," Wezel lets us know. "We already have several serious requests from companies and projects for early 2024. In the coming months, we are confidently developing further to scale up this new technology. At the end of this year or early next year, we will go public with this."

Gasunie and seven other leading companies in the hydrogen chain are working with TeamNL in the Mission H2 project, with the aim of working with the government and a large number of Dutch companies to develop a fully functioning hydrogen market by 2030. The cooperation will last at least until the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer of 2024 in Paris.