Enertrag AG, one of Europe’s leading wind energy suppliers, has installed 630 wind turbines  and produces 2.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. Enertrag’s hybrid power plant in the Uckermark region of northern Brandenburg combines a wind energy plant, a hydrogen generation facility, and a combined heat and power plant. When there is an oversupply of wind energy, the electricity is used to power an electrolytic process to generate hydrogen. Unlike electricity, hydrogen can be easily stored or fed into the gas system. When demand for electricity is high, the hydrogen can be used to fuel hydrogen vehicles, or can be converted back into electricity in the combined heat and power plant. Waste heat from the latter process is also used for district heating in the town of Prenzlau.

• Further reading: CLEW factsheet Power-to-gas: Fix for all problems or simply too expensive? and CLEW dossier Electricity storage is next feat for Germany’s energy transition
• CLEW research tour: The Energiewende: Making it happen on the autobahn
• Date of publication: September 2016