The UK’s HyNet North West and East Coast Cluster have been confirmed as the first low-carbon clusters that will receive state funding to develop blue hydrogen projects.

As part of a ten-point plan outlined in December, the UK announced it would provide £1bn ($1.4bn) to support the development of industrial carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) clusters around the country. Two industrial clusters will be established by the mid-2020s in the first phase, with a further two by 2030 in the second. Combined, the two phases will capture 10mn t CO₂/yr from industry and inject them into storage sites.

Seven industrial clusters were originally competing for funding: Scotland’s Acorn CCS; Zero Carbon Humber; Net Zero Teesside; HyNet North West; the South Wales Industrial Cluster; a Southampton cluster; and the Neptune project in Lincolnshire.

Earlier this year, Zero Carbon Humber and Net Zero Teesside joined forces to form the East Coast Cluster.

“I am...confirming that the HyNet and East Coast clusters have been confirmed as track one clusters for the mid-2020s and will be taken forward into…negotiations,” energy and climate change minister Greg Hands said in parliament.

“If the clusters represent value for money for the consumer and the taxpayer then, subject to final decisions of ministers, they will receive support under the government’s CCUS programme,” he added.

“The project will enable our manufacturing sector across the region to decarbonise” Parkin, HyNet

The Acorn cluster has been designated a reserve cluster if a back-up is needed. Hands said the government would continue to engage with Acorn in the second phase of its sequencing process—which will take place later in the decade—and that it remained committed to enabling 10mn t/yr of storage by 2030. This would require at least four, and likely five, of the clusters to be operational.

The HyNet project will feature a blue hydrogen facility that aims to produce the fuel from 2025 and will initially use the hydrogen for local industrial and mobility purposes. The partners hope to bring a second facility online two years later.

“From as soon as 2025, the project will enable our manufacturing sector across the region to decarbonise, as well as providing the opportunity to transition the way we travel and how we heat our homes,” says HyNet project director David Parkin.

BP is planning a 1GW blue hydrogen project as part of the Net Zero Teesside development. It has already signed offtake agreements with four firms. Meanwhile, SSE Thermal is also progressing plans with Equinor for the world’s first major 100pc hydrogen-fired power station at Keadby in Lincolnshire, as well as a large-scale hydrogen storage facility at Aldbrough on the East Yorkshire coast—both of which could plug into the East Coast Cluster.

The East Coast Cluster could deliver 70pc of the UK’s hydrogen target to have 5GW of low-carbon hydrogen by 2030, the partners say.

“We are delighted that the East Coast Cluster has been selected and we will look forward to delivering our project, removing up to 50pc of the UK’s industrial cluster CO₂ emissions, creating tens of thousands of jobs and establishing the UK as a leader in the energy transition,” says Andy Lane of the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP).

The NEP is a consortium of members from the Net Zero Teesside and Zero Carbon Humber clusters and the National Grid, which will handle the transport and storage of  CO₂ under the North Sea.

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Author: Tom Young