Oil & Gas Innovation Summer 2020 Digital | Page 60
HEALTH SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT
Plan for World-Leading Clean
Hydrogen Plant in the UK
Equinor is leading a project to develop one of the UK’s – and the world’s – first at-scale facilities to
produce hydrogen from natural gas in combination with carbon capture and storage (CCS). The project,
called Hydrogen to Humber Saltend (H2H Saltend), provides the beginnings of a decarbonised industrial
cluster in the Humber region, the UK’s largest by emissions.
H2H Saltend supports the UK government’s
aim to establish at least one low carbon
industrial cluster by 2030 and the world’s first
net zero cluster by 2040. It also paves the way for
the vision set out by the Zero Carbon Humber
alliance, which Equinor and its partners
launched in 2019.
The project will be located at Saltend Chemicals
Park near the city of Hull and its initial phase
comprises a 600 megawatt auto thermal
reformer (ATR) with carbon capture, the
largest plant of its kind in the world, to convert
natural gas to hydrogen. It will enable industrial
customers in the Park to fully switch over to
hydrogen, and the power plant in the Park to
move to a 30% hydrogen to natural gas blend.
As a result, emissions from Saltend Chemicals
Park will reduce by nearly 900,000 tonnes of
CO2 per year.
In its later phases, H2H Saltend can expand to
serve other industrial users in the Park and across
the Humber, which employs 55,000 people in
the manufacturing sector alone, contributing to
the cluster reaching net zero by 2040. This will
enable a large-scale hydrogen network, open to
both blue hydrogen (produced from natural gas
with CCS) and green hydrogen (produced from
electrolysis of water using renewable power), as
well as a network for transporting and storing
captured CO2 emissions. It is estimated that fuel
switching to hydrogen could create 43,000 new
job opportunities in energy-intensive industrial
sectors across the UK.
“The world continues to need more energy
at lower emissions so we can achieve the
ambitions of the Paris Agreement. This
necessitates a substantial decarbonisation of
industry, in which we believe carbon capture
& storage and hydrogen can and must play
a significant role. With private and public
investment and supportive UK policy, the
H2H Saltend project will demonstrate the
potential of these technologies. Together
we can make the Humber and the UK a
world-leading example that others can learn
from,” says Irene Rummelhoff, executive
vice president for marketing, midstream and
processing at Equinor.
“px Group is delighted to be supporting H2H
Saltend, a landmark project for UK energy
transition. We are fully committed to helping
industry reach net zero and both CCS and
hydrogen will play a huge part in that. We’re
looking forward to collaborating with all
the project partners as we work towards this
common goal,” says Geoff Holmes, chief
executive officer of px Group, which owns and
operates the Saltend Chemicals Park.
“As the UK’s leading supplier of energy, we’re
proud of the role our natural gas and offshore
wind has played in reducing carbon emissions
in power. Now we want to go further by
bringing hydrogen to the Humber region.
With our partners, we plan to transform the
UK’s largest industrial cluster into its greenest
cluster,” says Al Cook, executive vice president
and Equinor’s UK country manager.
H2H Saltend will be part of the Zero Carbon
Humber alliance’s application for public cofunding
in the second phase of the Industrial
Strategy Challenge Fund, which launched
on 23 June 2020. Subject to supportive UK
policy, Equinor and its partners will mature
the project towards a final investment decision
during 2023 with potential first production by
2026.
In 2018 Equinor, Northern Gas Networks
and Cadent, published the H21 North of
England report showing how blue hydrogen
could be produced and supplied to millions
of homes and business across the north of
England. Equinor is also a partner in the Net
Zero Teesside development which proposes
to build a new-build gas-fired power station
with carbon capture, and extending the CCS
infrastructure to the neighbouring industrial
cluster.
In May, Equinor and its partners took a final
investment decision on Northern Lights,
Europe’s first commercial-scale carbon
transportation & storage project off the coast
of Norway. If the Norwegian government
makes a positive final investment decision
in 2020, the first phase is expected to be
operational by 2024. •
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