Ørsted’s new Houston office will include support for P2X projects
Written by Nick BlenkeyØrsted today announced the official opening of a new office in downtown Houston. This new space will expand Ørsted’s presence in Texas, where it owns and operates eight clean energy projects collectively producing 2.4 GW of electricity, with an additional 1.2 GW of solar projects under construction. Many of the new office’s approximately 30 full-time employees will support Ørsted’s growing Power-to-X (P2X) business, which will be concentrated along the Gulf Coast of Texas.
P2X is the umbrella term for using renewable-sourced electricity to power the production of green hydrogen to create e-fuels, including e-methanol and e-ammonia. The use of green hydrogen will substitute the need for hydrogen produced from carbon-intensive sources and ultimately help decarbonize key sectors of the American economy.
“We’re excited to bolster Ørsted’s presence in the Lone Star State, which is already home to nearly a dozen of our clean energy projects,”said Melissa Peterson, vice president and head of onshore and P2X Americas at Ørsted. “Houston is the ideal location to base our growing Power-to-X operations, especially due to the existing energy workforce that will be needed for the engineering, construction, and operations of Ørsted’s future facilities. Expanding our footprint in Houston is a testament to our commitment to decarbonizing the most hard-to-electrify sectors and our continued growth in Texas and throughout the Gulf region.”
Ørsted is a member of the Houston-based HyVelocity Hub, one of the seven hubs selected by the U.S Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to receive funding for the development of new hydrogen projects. Ørsted is developing a P2X facility of up to 675 MW on the Texas Gulf Coast with a capacity to produce up to 300,000 metric tons of e-methanol annually which can be used directly as a marine shipping fuel, or as an input in sustainable aviation fuel or in chemical production.
This e-methanol will be produced using energy sourced from approximately 1.2 GW of new onshore wind and solar generation.