Renewable HYdrogen and MEthanol Bavaria

RHYME Bavaria

WACKER is beginning the work of decarbonizing its industrial production processes – with renewable hydrogen.

Global warming is one of the most urgent social and economic challenges of our time, and we can only fight it successfully by working together, pooling our innovative strength and scaling up new low-CO2 technologies. WACKER is prepared to do its part to meet Paris Agreement targets and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and through our planned production and use of green hydrogen, we intend to take decisive steps toward decarbonizing our own production.

Our RHYME Bavaria goal is to narrow our carbon footprint even further. By producing green hydrogen for industrial use, we are making a vital contribution toward markedly reducing fossil raw materials in chemical processes and products.

Dr. Christian Hartel, President and CEO of Wacker Chemie AG

Sustainably produced hydrogen and methanol

As part of the RHYME (renewable hydrogen and methanol) Bavaria project, WACKER is planning to construct a plant complex that will produce green hydrogen and renewable methanol at its Burghausen site. One component of the planned complex is a 20-megawatt electrolysis plant that will generate green hydrogen from water and renewable energy. Plans also call for a synthesis plant for combining this green hydrogen with carbon dioxide from existing processes to produce renewable methanol. The synthesis plant’s expected capacity is 15,000 metric tons per year.

Hydrogen and methanol both serve as a basis for manufacturing additional products for applications such as silicones or polysilicon. Compared with existing methanol production methods, the new process could cut CO2 emissions by around 80 percent.

The Project in Numbers

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20 MW

PEM electrolysis

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15 kt/a

renewable methanol

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22 kt/a

CO2 as a raw material

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80 %

fewer CO2 emissions than the current process

The Project

Capital expenditures for the RHYME project amount to €100 million. WACKER has submitted a funding application to the EU Innovation Fund, which is one of the largest funding programmes in the European Union. In total, it has a budget of €10 billion to support innovative low-carbon technologies and processes in energy-intensive industries until 2030. WACKER has also submitted an application for funding to the German Federal Ministry for Environment, which provides an additional €1 billion in financial support for decarbonizing the energy-intensive industry. If the funding is granted, construction could begin as early as the start of next year, with the plant potentially coming onstream before the end of 2024. In addition to funding approval, the cost of electricity will also play an important role in the success of the project. Electricity needs to cost less than 4 cents per kWh in the medium term for climate-friendly production methods such as these to be cost-effective.

Read the related press release here.

Our Partners:

Logos of various partners
Bavarian Research Alliance Bayernets - erdgas transport systeme SFC Energy Renewable Hydrogen Coalition CropEnergies AG Rohrdorfer Zement
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