Megaton: Denmark's latest $9bn bid to tap gigascale wind and solar for green hydrogen

Project in western Denmark would use on- and offshore turbines and PV to power 2GW of electrolysers by 2030

Denmark's latest plan to become a key player in the global e-fuels market aims to tap 4GW of solar and wind – some of it offshore – to produce hydrogen.

Danish developer GreenGo Energy unveiled its €8bn ($8.7bn) Megaton project to produce more than a million tonnes of “green fuels” using 2GW of hydrogen electrolysers powered by the renewables.

The site of the Megaton Energy Park, in the Ringkøbing-Skjern municipality, western Denmark, “benefits from complementary solar and wind production profiles — a hybrid that can be balanced so that the electrolysis runs optimally all year round”, the company said.

The 4GW of wind and solar projects, including 2GW of offshore wind — which will come from GreenGo’s existing development portfolio — will produce 11.5TWh annually, the equivalent of more than 30% of Denmark’s total power consumption.

More than 1TWh of surplus heat from the power-to-x project will also be used by the local district heating system and “new industries such as greenhouses and vertical farming” to the immediate south of the facility.

GreenGo also intends to offer shares in the project to local people “to ensure the possibility of true co-ownership locally”.

Megaton joins other major green hydrogen projects slated for Denmark, which wants to be a major producer of e-fuels by 2030, including from the likes of home-based global offshore wind champion Orsted.

“With the Megaton project and the development of one of the world's largest energy parks in Western Jutland, we will once again put Denmark on the world map as a leader in the transition to 100% green power and the green fuels that are necessary to achieve the global climate goals towards 2050,” said GreenGo CEO Karsten Nielsen.

Curiously, GreenGo has not revealed what sort of “green fuels” it is planning to produce. Recharge's sister title Hydrogen Insight has approached the company for comment.

• A version of this article first appeared in Hydrogen Insight