Tees Valley Mayor has today
(18 March) welcomed BP’s announcement that it plans to create the
UK’s largest “blue” hydrogen production facility in the Tees
Valley.
The proposed development, named H2 Teesside, would begin production
in 2027, is targeting 1GW of hydrogen production by 2030. A
feasibility study is currently taking place into the project, which
would further boost the region’s ambitions to become a clean energy
powerhouse for the UK and support other nearby industries in
converting to use hydrogen over natural gas and other energy
sources.
Blue hydrogen is produced by converting natural gas into hydrogen
and carbon dioxide which is then captured and permanently stored.
The H2Teesside project would be integrated with the already-planned
Net Zero Teesside and Northern Endurance Partnership carbon
capture, utilisation and storage projects in the region.
With 1GW hydrogen production, H2Teesside would generate and send
for storage up to two million tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent
to capturing the emissions from the [gas] heating of one million
UK households. The captured CO2 would flow through Net Zero
Teesside’s facilities and be taken for subsea storage via NEP’s
offshore infrastructure.
The announcement came the day after it was revealed the Net Zero
Teesside and Northern Endurance Partnership project had secured
an extra £52million in private and public funding for the scheme.
BP has also already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the
Tees Valley Mayor and Combined Authority to explore the potential
for green hydrogen, with the creation of the UK’s first hydrogen
transport hub.
Mayor Houchen said: “This great news is just the icing on the
cake of the past couple of weeks, when we’ve seen announcement
after announcement on how Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool is
set to play its part in the clean energy revolution and the
innovative sectors of the future in the way to Net Zero.
“We have been working alongside BP for years on our Net Zero
Teesside and hydrogen transport projects, with the former getting
a huge funding boost just yesterday. This announcement is yet
another vote of confidence in our region from BP as it’s becoming
increasingly clear there’s no better place to do business in the
sector than right here.
“The clean energy sector is central to my plan for jobs, creating
thousands of good-quality, well-paid jobs in these industries for
generations to come. In securing our Freeport, the news of GE
Renewable Energy creating its offshore wind turbine blade
facility in the area, and now BP announcing its intention to
strengthen ties, it won’t be long before other global businesses
are attracted to invest here.”
Dev Sanyal, BP’s executive vice president of gas and low carbon
energy, said: “Clean hydrogen is an essential complement to
electrification on the path to net zero. Blue hydrogen,
integrated with carbon capture and storage, can provide the scale
and reliability needed by industrial processes. It can also play
an essential role in decarbonising hard-to-electrify industries
and driving down the cost of the energy transition.
“H2Teesside, together with NZT and NEP, has the potential to
transform the area into one of the first carbon neutral clusters
in the UK, supporting thousands of jobs and enabling the UK’s Ten
Point Plan.”
UK Energy Minister
said: “Driving the growth of low carbon hydrogen is a key part of
the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan and our Energy White Paper
and can play an important part in helping us end our contribution
to climate change by 2050.
“Clean hydrogen has huge potential to help us fully decarbonise
across the UK and it is great to see bp exploring its full
potential on Teesside.”
The H2 project would be developed in stages, with an initial
500MW of blue hydrogen capacity in production by 2027 or earlier
and additional capacity to be deployed by 2030 as decarbonisation
of the industrial cluster gathers pace. bp sees potential for
further hydrogen demand in Teesside beyond 2030
The feasibility study, which is expected to be completed this
year, is exploring technologies that could capture 98% of carbon
emissions from the hydrogen production process. A final
investment decision for the project is expected to come in early
2024.
