‘Final investment decision’ taken on €110m Franco-German hydrogen pipeline project MosaHYc

A final investment decision (FID) has been taken on the €110m Franco-German hydrogen pipeline project MosaHYc, according to the parent company of one of the project’s two partners.

French utility Engie has announced that its subsidiary GRTgaz has taken FID on the 90km project, which will connect green H₂ producers in the Moselle region of eastern France and Germany’s Saarland state with local offtakers.

But German gas network operator Creos Deutschland, which is developing the Saarland part of the project, says the FID still depends on state funding from the German government.

“The final investment decision enables the launch of the administrative authorisations phase, followed by the construction and network conversion phase, with commissioning scheduled for 2027,” Engie stated in a press release.

But Creos wrote in its own press release: “The implementation of mosaHYc on the German side depends on the outstanding IPCEI [Important Project of Common European Interest] funding decision from the federal government and the final investment decision based on it.”

The European Commission recently awarded Project of Common Interest status to the German side of the project, which allows it to receive state aid from the German government.

GRTgaz will spend €40m on its 50km of pipelines — 45km of which will consist of converted natural-gas pipes, while Creos has committed €70m to its roughly 40km section, which will include 20km of new pipes.

The first offtaker connected to the pipeline will be a steelmaker called ROGESA — is a 50-50 joint venture between local steel companies Dillinger [sic] and Stahl-Holding-Saar (SHS) — in the German town of Dillingen, which will receive up to 50,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year.

SHS is due to receive a €2.6bn grant from the German government to replace existing blast furnaces at its Dillengen and Völklingen steelworks with two electric arc furnaces and a hydrogen-fired direct iron reduction plan in Dillengen. The European Commission gave state-aid approval for the grant back in December.

ROGESA, Creos and GRTgaz have all now signed contracts for their parts of MosaHYc, which is due to begin operations in 2027, connecting the French towns of Bouzonville, Carling and Saint-Avold with the German towns of Dillingen, Völklingen, Saarlouis and Perl.

“The mosaHYc network is set to develop: it will offer the possibility of connecting other producers and consumers of hydrogen in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner,” said GRTgaz in its own press release. “Thus, this network is a pioneer in the construction of the European internal hydrogen market by offering a first open and shared cross-border infrastructure.”

Engie vice-president Cécile Prévieu added: “The mosaHYc project has a strategic value as the first Franco-German link, paving the way for the development of a wider European hydrogen network. This project will accelerate the development of a renewable, low-carbon hydrogen market in Europe.

“It also contributes to our goal of 700km of hydrogen-dedicated transport networks by 2030.”

It is not yet known who will supply the green hydrogen to ROGESA — two weeks ago, SHS launched a tender for the supply of 50,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen to Dillingen through the MosaHYc network.

GRTGaz is an independently operated subsidiary of Engie, which owns 60% of the gas transmission system operator, with French bank Caisse des Dépôts owning the other 40%.

MosaHYc has previously been described as a 100km project.