OREANDA-NEWS In the summer of 2024, a hydrogen test site is to be launched on Sakhalin, the press service of the regional government reported.

"At the end of June in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the Hydrogen Engineering Center with a pilot test site based on the Special Design Bureau of Marine Research Automation Equipment (SKB SAMI) should start operating FEB RAS. Today, equipment is being delivered here that will allow using solar and wind energy to produce hydrogen," the message says.

Hydrogen will be produced by electrolysis of water.

The landfill has already received elements of the future solar station - 600 panels with a capacity of 500 watts each. The complete equipment is planned to be received by May 15 and installation and commissioning will be carried out within a month.

"The Sakhalin hydrogen test site is the first site of its kind in Russia. The island region has won the right to implement a pilot project for the development of hydrogen energy, which was initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. If the experiment is successful, a hydrogen plant will be launched in a few years and the export of clean fuel to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region will be established," the officials noted.

"Sakhalin is becoming a big scientific platform. Our partner in the creation of the hydrogen test site is the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The other day we signed an agreement with the Moscow (State Technical - IF) University named after Bauman," said the governor of the region Valery Limarenko.

With the help of hydrogen produced at the landfill, it is planned to provide electricity to the remote village of Novikovo in the Korsakovsky district. In addition, clean energy will be used for the needs of the Ministry of Emergency Situations at the Fluffy airfield in the Korsakovsky district, for a cell phone tower in the village of Ogonki in the Anivsky district, in the future - for public vehicles and heavy municipal equipment in the region.

They are going to create an Eastern hydrogen cluster on Sakhalin. Last year, the government of the Sakhalin Region signed a cooperation agreement on this project with Rosatom State Corporation, RAOS JSC, Gazprom PJSC and the Ministry of Regional Development.

The cluster will include a hydrogen landfill and an export-oriented hydrogen plant (hydrogen production by steam conversion of methane). Previously, it was planned that the first stage of the plant with a capacity of 30 thousand tons per year would be put into operation at the end of 2026, and the plant would reach 100 thousand tons in 2030. Anton Moskvin, Vice President of Rusatom Overseas, said during a speech to the Federation Council on March 5 that Rosatom State Corporation plans to launch a hydrogen plant on Sakhalin in 2029 with a capacity of up to 36.5 thousand tons per year of "blue" hydrogen.

The aim of the cluster is to create a new hydrogen energy industry in the region for the export of hydrogen, the development of full-cycle hydrogen technologies and their internal consumption in the energy sector, transport and utilities.