As a first project, the city will use its sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants as a hydrogen source. This hydrogen will then be used in HEE‘s stationary fuel cell systems. In order to generate the hydrogen from the municipal sludge, the pre-dried sludge will be thermo-chemically gasified in double-fluidized bed reactors (DFB). For this HEE and the city of Guiyang cooperate with the TU Wien (Technology University of Vienna), BioEnergy2020+ and Blue Energy Europe.

On the Chinese side, HEE cooperates with Guizhou Maritime Silk Road International Investment Corp. (GIIC), a major investment company in Guizhou Province, and PowerChina Guizhou Electric Power Design & Research Institute, PowerChina’s dedicated branch for designing new power plants. The first project has a total investment value of approx. 100 million EUR.

There are further plans to convert a whole city district to a hydrogen gas grid over the upcoming years.