Support for Mibrag's green hydrogen plans

The lignite producer Mibrag wants to develop into an energy service provider based on renewable energies. To this end, among other things, a 90-megawatt electrolyzer for the production of green hydrogen is to be built at the Profen site in the Burgenland district, the state chancellery announced in Magdeburg on Tuesday. The company wants to invest a total of 251 million euros and is counting on funding from the European "Fund for a Just Transition," it said. The state wants to support the project in the best possible way, it said after a cabinet meeting. 2035 is definitely end with the coal production in Profen, it was said.

The electrolyzer is to be built according to the information by the end of 2026. In addition, there would be a green power grid infrastructure, a hydrogen storage facility and water and wastewater treatment plants. According to the company, the green hydrogen produced in Profen will be used on site at the energy and chemical park, but will also be marketed via the Central German hydrogen pipeline network. Of the total of around 251 million euros, a good 218 million is to be invested in Saxony-Anhalt and just under 33 million in Saxony.

Mibrag supplies lignite exclusively in central Germany to the Lippendorf (Saxony) and Schkopau (Saxony-Anhalt) power plants, the Chemnitz combined heat and power plant and industrial operations. The coal is mined in the Profen and Vereinigtes Schleenhain opencast mines in the Central German mining area. The mining company, based in Zeitz in the south of Saxony-Anhalt, says it will have produced around 16 million tons of lignite in 2022. That, it said, was about one-tenth of the amount mined in Germany.