Brexit Britain takes green energy lead with £45m hydrogen investment

ZeroAvia outline plans for a hydrogen electric powered flight

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

Essar Oil UK will be decommissioning three existing furnaces at its Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port to be replaced with a single furnace capable of running entirely off hydrogen. The £45m project will be the first of its kind in the UK and is estimated to be capable of reducing CO2 emissions from the site by 16,600 tonnes a year. Subject to planning approval the furnace will be installed this year and aims to be fully operational in 2023. Essar believes the construction of the furnace is the first major step to rolling out infrastructure running off hydrogen and future-proofing the site for greater uptake of the fuel.

From 2026 the furnace will be fuelled entirely from hydrogen produced at Stanlow as part of Essar’s joint venture Vertex Hydrogen to develop the world’s first and largest blue hydrogen production plant.

This wider project will see £1bn committed to developing the hub which aims to produce 1GW per year of hydrogen, equivalent to the domestic heating energy used by a major city such as Liverpool.

Blue hydrogen works by separating hydrogen from other gases and capturing and storing the C02 produced to prevent it getting into the atmosphere.

In Vertex Hydrogen’s case waste fuel gasses from Stanlow and natural gas will be used with the C02 captured and stored underground offshore.

Once Essar’s furnace is running off hydrogen it predicts emissions for the site will be reduced by 11 percent.

CEO of Essar, Deepak Maheshwari commented: “We have hugely ambitious plans for Stanlow and are committed to making it the UK’s first low carbon refinery.

“By affecting a significant and rapid transition to hydrogen, we are securing the long term future of this vitally important national asset whilst also playing a key role in supporting the UK’s plans for building the low carbon economy of tomorrow.”

The Stanlow refinery currently supplies around 16 percent of the UK’s road transport fuels making it a key target for reducing emissions.

Once the site begins producing hydrogen it will also supply this to a range of other companies to looking to transition to low carbon energy sources.

Expected businesses so far include Tata Chemicals Europe, Encirc and InterGen.

The developments at Stanlow fit into the wider HyNet North West project which aims to create a low carbon and hydrogen energy cluster in the North West of England and North Wales.

The project has already been earmarked for a share of a £1bn pot of Government funding for carbon capture and storage infrastructure.

DON’T MISS: 
Britain leads Europe on financial tech [REVEAL]
Bitcoin leads crypto market bounce back [ANALYSIS]
Britons urged to abandon high street banks [SPOTLIGHT]

The UK is currently betting big on hydrogen and carbon capture with a similar cluster project in Teesside also receiving a slice of the funding.

Oil giant BP has also announced it plans to build a green hydrogen site in the area at an estimated cost of £100m.

Unlike blue hydrogen, green hydrogen uses electrolysis to extract hydrogen from water meaning no CO2 is produced, assuming the electricity used comes from renewable sources.

Source: Read Full Article