Five hydrogen projects share £28m BEIS funding

The funding package itself forms part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) £500m innovation fund, dedicated to harnessing and rolling out advanced technology to fight climate change.

This is an important part of our world-leading efforts in eliminating our contribution to climate change by 2050 while also growing our economy

 

Kwasi Kwarteng, minister for business, energy and clean growth

The news comes two weeks after prime minister Boris Johnson announced plans to bring forward the phase-out of coal to 2024, part of a “Year of Climate Action” ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November.

 

The five projects are:

Dolphyn project, from Environmental Resources Management, which has received £3.12m. It is trialling hydrolysis powered by offshore wind generation, with a floating platform design with an integrated wind turbine, polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysis and desalination facilities. The 400 turbines, in a 20 x 20 array, will have a capacity of 4GW, producing sufficient supply to heat more than 1.5 million UK homes with no carbon emissions.

HyNet, run by Progressive Energy in collaboration with Johnson Matthey, SNC Lavalin and Essar Oil, has been awarded £7.48m. The project plans to produce hydrogen as a fuel for heating, power and transport, while also capturing and storing over a million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) offshore in depleted gas fields in Liverpool Bay. The project will use Johnson Matthey’s proprietary technology to produce hydrogen from natural gas.

Gigastack, run by ITM Power Trading, in collaboration with Orsted, Phillips 66 and Element Energy, has been awarded £7.5m. The project, based in the North Sea close to Grimsby, will produce renewable hydrogen derived from offshore wind.

Acorn, a project run by energy advisers Project Pale Blue Dot Energy, has been awarded £2.7m. The project, which could be operational by 2023, It will exploit redundant North Sea gas distribution assets. It is supported by expert partners from UK, Norway and the Netherlands

HyPER, based at Cranfield University, in collaboration with Gas Technology Institute and Doosan, has been awarded £7.44m. The Bulk Hydrogen Production by Sorbent Enhanced Steam Reforming will construct a state-of-the-art 1.5 MW pilot plant at Cranfield University to test an innovative hydrogen production technology that substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Visiting the Gigastack project in Grimsby today, Kwasi Kwarteng, minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, said: “Cleaning up emissions from industry and housing is a big challenge but today’s £90 million investment will set us on the right path as we develop clean technologies like hydrogen.

“This is an important part of our world-leading efforts in eliminating our contribution to climate change by 2050 while also growing our economy, creating up to 2 million green collar jobs across the country by 2030.”

The BEIS funding will support the second phase of the Gigastack project, which will involve a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study on a 100MW electrolyser system.

This funding represents a huge step forwards in terms of the government recognising the gas networks’ role in meeting Net Zero targets

 

Mark Horsley, chief executive, Northern Gas Networks

The FEED study will detail the design of a hydrogen production system connected to a wind farm and industrial off-taker using ITM Power’s new generation of electrolyser stack technology, renewable energy directly from Ørsted’s Hornsea Two offshore wind farm.

The resulting renewable hydrogen would be supplied to an industrial off-taker, Phillips 66’s Humber Refinery.

A key objective of the Gigastack project is to identify and highlight regulatory, commercial and technical challenges for real applications of industrial-scale renewable hydrogen systems.

Mark Horsley, chief executive of Northern Gas Networks, the gas distributor for the north, has voiced his support for the £28m funding announcement.  

He said:”This funding represents a huge step forwards in terms of the government recognising the gas networks’ role in meeting Net Zero targets, and demonstrating its support for hydrogen as a decarbonisation pathway.

“The Committee on Climate Change made clear that hydrogen will be essential to meeting our commitment in the timescales available, and we know this will require strong collaboration between industry, the energy supply chain and government, in order to deliver greener energy to customers.

 “Tuesday’s announcement demonstrates the determination the government has for driving this whole process forwards.”

 

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