£75m Humber carbon plan put to Government
12-PARTNER PROJECT COULD ENHANCE GREEN CREDENTIALS
A£75M bid to accelerate the greening up of heavy industry on the Humber has been submitted to the Government. Twelve leading companies and organisations that form the Zero Carbon Humber partnership have signed off the application for the huge carbon capture and hydrogen network involving a pan-regional pipeline and subsea storage.
Together they represent thousands of employees, and by targeting the most carbon intensive area in the UK, aim to take a huge step towards 2050 targets, supporting clean growth and future-proofing vital industries - protecting and creating jobs.
The anchor project is the Equinor-led Hydrogen to Humber (H2H) Saltend project, which will establish the world’s largest hydrogen production plant with carbon capture at Saltend Chemicals Park.
Also on board are Associated British Ports, British Steel, Centrica Storage Ltd, Drax Group, Mitsubishi Power, National Grid Ventures, PX Group, SSE Thermal, Saltend Cogeneration Company Ltd, Uniper, and the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.
Al Cook, executive vice president and country manager at Equinor, said: “The Zero Carbon Humber bid demonstrates the ambitious action needed to drive a low carbon recovery and reach net zero. This proposal, supported by a broad group of companies, will bring huge benefits to the Humber economy, protecting and creating jobs and reducing emissions.
“The H2H Saltend project at the centre of this bid will both demonstrate the value of hydrogen and carbon capture across the wider energy system, and unlock the transformation of the Humber into the UK’S largest and greenest industrial cluster.
“We and our partners will continue to progress our proposals, working closely with key stakeholders. Together we can make the Humber and the UK the environmental standard bearer that the world can learn from.”
Announced in the summer, it would convert natural gas to hydrogen and capture the carbon dioxide, allowing fuel switching by industrial customers and blending at the on-site Triton Power station.
A pipeline network would then link H2H Saltend to energyintensive industrial sites throughout the region.
Captured CO2 would be compressed at Centrica Storage’s Easington site and pumped into caverns under the North Sea.
Initial work has forecast it could reduce the UK’S annual emissions by 15 per cent and save industry around £27.5bn in carbon taxes by 2040. It could safeguard 55,000 existing jobs in the region, while creating thousands of new roles and developing skills, apprenticeships and educational opportunities.
It is part of the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge, which forms part the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, with significant investment also coming from the companies within the partnership.
The bid for matched funding covers obtaining land rights, development consents and front-end engineering design for H2H Saltend and the onshore pipeline infrastructure for CO2 and hydrogen, enabling the scheme to move towards a final investment decision in 2023, with H2H Saltend and associated infrastructure expected to come online around 2026.
Drax Power Station would connect to the completed pipeline network, underpinning the scheme with bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – negative emissions technology that it is pioneering, seen as essential to decarbonising the Humber cluster.
The pipeline network will also run via SSE Thermal’s Keadby site, where it is developing Keadby Three.
This could become the UK’S first gas-fired power station equipped with carbon capture technology by the mid-2020s.
British Steel could also benefit from the ZCH infrastructure as part of its drive to lower emissions.
Ron Deelen, chief executive of
British Steel, said: “We have ambitious plans to invest in a range of technologies to reduce the carbon intensity of our operations, with solutions that are globally recognised and acceptable to customers.
“The development of the ZCH project, with the proposed installation of a dual CCS and hydrogen supply pipeline, will afford us the opportunity to utilise a range of techniques to reduce the carbon intensity of our operations. This project complements the decarbonising technology roadmap of British Steel.”
ABP will support the global reach of the low carbon products and chemicals produced at Saltend.
It is seen as a potential inward investment magnet too, while linking with other plans for the integration of offshore wind power into hydrogen production, decarbonising the regional gas grid, supplying hydrogen transport fuelling hubs, and creating the world’s first sustainable maritime refuelling port.