Bad Lauchstädt's 30 MW electrolyser produces its first green hydrogen

The 30 MW electrolyser at Energiepark Bad Lauchstädt, a hydrogen project in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, has produced its first green hydrogen, the project's partners announced on November 10, 2026. The pressurised alkaline unit, supplied by Sunfire and run by a joint venture of Uniper and VNG Handel & Vertrieb, splits water using power from an adjacent wind farm of about 50 MW. Industrial use of the hydrogen is planned from 2027, the year the partners also expect to finish commissioning the integrated system.

First hydrogen opens a test phase rather than a delivery schedule. The electrolyser is three 10 MW modules of two stacks each, built since a groundbreaking in June 2023, and the partners now plan to run it together with the rest of the chain: wind power, gas conditioning and transport. Konstantin von Oldenburg, managing director of VNG Handel & Vertrieb, called the first molecules forerunners of the roughly 3,000 tonnes of hydrogen the project's anchor customer is to take and use industrially in 2027, and the trial operation now starting a step toward later deliveries. That customer is TotalEnergies' refinery at Leuna, according to the project's September 2026 note on its certification. For now the partners put Leuna in the future tense: the hydrogen is to be used there.

Uniper's chief operating officer, Holger Kreetz, looked past the milestone. "The hydrogen economy needs more than electrolysers: it needs working connections between renewable power generation and industrial customers," he said, adding that what matters now is that the whole process chain works reliably in operation (our translation).

The pipe was ready first

The connection to the refinery has been waiting longer than the hydrogen. ONTRAS converted a natural gas line from the 1980s, about 25 kilometres long, to carry hydrogen to Leuna, and the state energy ministry marked its start of operation in April 2025 as the first transport line of Germany's hydrogen core network in Saxony-Anhalt. At the time, the ministry said the electrolyser and an offtake station at Leuna were still under construction, with work planned to finish at the end of 2025, and that ONTRAS would test the line until then.

The refinery date has slipped from late 2025 to 2027. When ONTRAS and TotalEnergies signed the grid connection contracts in June 2024, ONTRAS managing director Gunar Schmidt said the refinery was to be able to use hydrogen from the pipeline for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to ONTRAS. TotalEnergies' Thomas Behrends said in the same release that green hydrogen would replace the grey hydrogen the refinery's processes then used.

The volumes depend on who is counting. In October 2025, as the first stacks arrived, project spokesperson Cornelia Müller-Pagel said the plant would make up to 4,000 tonnes a year after commissioning. The ministry's April 2025 release said the pipeline is to carry 2,700 tonnes a year. Von Oldenburg's figure, about 3,000 tonnes, is what the anchor customer is to take in 2027. A production ceiling, a pipeline plan and a year's offtake need not match.

Certified before the first hydrogen

The paperwork arrived ahead of the product. In early August 2026 the certifier GUTcert confirmed that hydrogen production at the park meets the EU criteria for renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBO), the project said in September. The audit checked, among other things, that the electricity comes from renewable sources, that the greenhouse gas savings requirement is met (at least 70% against the fossil fuel reference) and that every relevant step can be documented and independently verified. The certificate lasts one year before a recertification audit.

The certificate is what lets the refinery count the hydrogen. Only certified hydrogen can be credited by buyers against legal requirements and traded as a sustainable product, the project said, and that applies first of all to the Leuna refinery. From the start of production, consumption and production data must be documented and assigned at all times and face review every year, said Laura Härter, who coordinated the audit for VNG Handel & Vertrieb.

The partners are investing €210 million in the project in total, including €44 million of federal funding as a "living lab of the energy transition" under the economy ministry's 7th Energy Research Programme. The design is meant to test the whole chain at industrial scale, with a salt cavern leached for the purpose to store hydrogen between production and the converted pipeline, per the project's own description. Caverns are moving elsewhere in Germany too: in Lower Saxony, EWE said on November 6, 2026 that the well of the gas cavern it is converting to hydrogen at Huntorf had passed its leak test, ahead of a 2028 start.

Thirty megawatts in test operation is modest, but it is more than the Netherlands has running from its 2022 IPCEI round, where none of the 1,150 MW awarded is operating, according to the Dutch climate minister's answers to parliament. Refinery hydrogen elsewhere is earlier still: ITM Power's Hydropulse has heads of terms for a 150 MW plant at an unnamed European refinery, with hydrogen expected in 2029.