PosHYdon Project, North Sea

The PosHYdon project is an innovative energy transition pilot project in the Dutch North Sea. The project is the first of its kind in the world and will produce green hydrogen using offshore wind power on an operational platform.

Electricity from offshore wind will be used to electrolyse filtered sea water, producing hydrogen for transportation to shore using existing North Sea gas infrastructure. This has the potential to vastly reduce complexity and cost.

However, using the existing gas infrastructure means the newly produced hydrogen will pass through other existing operational platforms which can impact the safety risk profile of the existing assets.

Kent have recently supported a Dutch North Sea operator to understand the change in risk on their production platform due to this newly produced hydrogen passing through it. Our extensive experience in offshore safety in the oil and gas industry has allowed us to apply advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling techniques to quantify the consequences of accidental releases of gas mixtures containing hydrogen. We calculated probabilistic explosion loads for critical locations on the platform, allowing the operator to understand and manage any change in risks due to this novel project.