HyStarter I: Hydrogen Region Schaumburg

As the oldest coal-mining region in northern Germany with many former mines and slag piles, there is an opportunity here to develop the district once again into a new energy production location with a promising future. The region can look back on an extraordinary development, which for long stretches is also a history of hydrogen. Already at the beginning of the last century, the construction of a coke plant created a gas network that was unusually dense for the region. Both the coke oven gas and the town gas consisted of more than 55% {10fa2557b41e852a1d0f28b5eec2f77c9c2a507c8c22bae7aafda37f2b93945d} hydrogen. Until the conversion to natural gas at the end of the 1960s, the Schaumburg region could certainly be called a hydrogen region.
Both in private households and in industry and commerce, gas still plays a prominent role as a primary energy. In order to be able to use these structures even after the resolved decarbonisation of the region, the re-entry into a sustainable hydrogen economy is indispensable.

The district proves its competences and capacities for innovation as well as social processes and involvement through excellent, also supra-regional, networking with all essential stakeholders. By participating in the HyStarter project, the district of Schaumburg anticipates a broad acceptance of hydrogen as an energy of the future at all levels, from politics to organisations, associations, industry, crafts, business, banks and private consumers. Building on this, the concrete entry into the future hydrogen economy can begin in order to develop the region into an exemplary hydrogen region worthy of being replicated.