Industrial gases firm Air Products and power generator VPI have signed an agreement to develop an 800MW blue hydrogen production facility, called H3, in Immingham in the northeast of the UK.

The facility would be the third blue hydrogen plant in the Humber region, following the submission of plans by Norway’s Equinor for its H2H Saltend and H2H Production 2 project.

The majority of the hydrogen produced would be used to decarbonise the third train at VPI’s planned 1.2GW gas-fired combined-heat-and-power plant at Immingham.

VPI is planning to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) to decarbonise the production of the first two trains.

“We are harnessing the expertise of the world’s largest producer of hydrogen” Briggs, VPI

“By partnering with Air Products on H3, we are harnessing the expertise of the world’s largest producer of hydrogen―and the operator of one of the largest low-carbon hydrogen facilities in Port Arthur, Texas, US―to ensure that we can make a substantial contribution to the decarbonisation of the Humber region,” says VPI’s project director, Jonathan Briggs.

Air Products’ 30t/d liquid hydrogen facility in Port Arthur started production last year.

The H3 project has submitted an application for ‘Strand 1’ funding as part of the UK’s Net Zero Hydrogen Fund.

The fund will provide support for the initial construction of green and blue hydrogen production projects via four strands. The first will support project development by helping fund Feed and post-Feed studies.

Growing network

If approved, the plant would join a growing network of decarbonisation projects, known as Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH) in the area. These include H2H Saltend, H2H Production 2 and a hydrogen plant at Keadby planned by Equinor and UK utility SSE Thermal. All the projects would use a shared hydrogen and CCS network developed by ZCH.

This network will allow CO₂ generated during hydrogen production at blue hydrogen plants in the region to be transported to, and stored under, the North Sea.

It will be developed following an announcement by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy last year that the East Coast Cluster, of which ZCH forms a part, was one of two successful bids in the first track of its £1bn ($1.18bn) CCS competition.

As part of the same network of linked projects, Equinor is planning a hydrogen storage facility at Aldbrough and has plans to use hydrogen in heating trials in towns in northern

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Author: Tom Young