Construction of Hydrogen Pipeline Begins: BMW Connects Its Leipzig Plant to the H2 Core Network
Today, the BMW Group plant in Leipzig is celebrating the symbolic groundbreaking for a hydrogen pipeline approximately two kilometers long that will connect to the future core hydrogen network. The facility will thus become the world’s first automobile plant to be supplied with hydrogen directly via a pipeline.
Completion and connection are scheduled for the first half of 2028. Building a high-performance hydrogen infrastructure is a joint effort involving companies, energy partners, and policymakers, and represents an important contribution to sustainable industrial locations in Germany. This H2 pipeline project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the German Federal State of Saxony and makes a significant contribution to the development of a sustainable hydrogen infrastructure in Saxony.
- BMW Group Drives Forward Innovative Use of Hydrogen in Leipzig
The Leipzig plant has been using hydrogen in its intralogistics operations since 2013. Today, the plant uses over 230 hydrogen fuel cell-powered forklifts and tugger trains, making it the largest fleet of fuel cell-powered intralogistics vehicles in Europe. Since 2022, hydrogen has also been used in the paint shop: Eleven bivalent paint burners have now been installed there, which can flexibly burn either natural gas or hydrogen.
With the pipeline connection, hydrogen will be able to replace natural gas in the future, particularly in areas where energy-intensive processes require high temperatures. This is the case with the dryers in the paint shop. The use of bivalent natural gas and hydrogen burners also allows for the collection of experience regarding the technical and economic conditions surrounding the ramp-up of the H2 core network, enabling optimized operation of the facilities.
- Strong Partners for a Resilient Energy Supply
Connecting the BMW Group plant in Leipzig to the future H2 core network is a joint effort by industry and energy partners. To this end, the BMW Group has entered into a capacity reservation agreement with ONTRAS Gastransport GmbH, based in Leipzig, which is responsible for developing the hydrogen core network in the region. MITNETZ GAS GmbH is responsible for the construction of the approximately two-kilometer-long connection pipeline for the BMW plant in Leipzig, including the gas pressure regulation and metering system. In this way, the parties involved are contributing to making hydrogen an industrially viable energy source and ensuring the long-term resilience of the energy supply at the Leipzig site.