Two consortia plan decarbonisation projects for the Humber region

Eleven energy and industrial companies have signed an agreement to plan for a decarbonised industrial cluster in the Humber region – that would transform the region into the world’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040.

The plan has, says its promoters, the potential to contribute to the future prosperity of the UK’s largest industrial hub and to safeguard 55,000 jobs in manufacturing across the region.

Companies involved include some of the largest businesses in the region: Associated British Ports; Centrica Storage; Drax Group; Equinor; National Grid Ventures; Phillips 66; px Group; SSE Thermal; Saltend Cogeneration Company; VPI-Immingham; and Uniper.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) also announced that the Humber project had succeeded in its application for Phase One funding via the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

The proposals include identifying anchor projects from across the region that can kickstart decarbonisation of the Humber industrial region, with the potential to capture and store around 10% of UK carbon dioxide emissions by 2040.

The plan uses a coordinated approach to reduce emissions through options to deploy capture and storage of emissions (CCS), negative emissions (through bioenergy with CCS), fuel switching to low carbon hydrogen (produced from natural gas using CCS) and looking into future options of hydrogen through electrolysis.

Speaking on behalf of the consortium, Al Cook, Executive Vice President and UK Country Manager at Equinor, the company leading the bid, said: ‘We believe CCS and hydrogen must play a significant role in decarbonising energy systems in the UK and globally, so we are pleased that the UK government and UKRI have recognised the ambition and potential of these proposals.’

Meanwhile, energy storage and clean fuel company ITM Power has won, with partner Element Energy, a first stage deployment project in the same Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to assess the feasibility and scope of deploying green hydrogen with some major industrial partners in Humberside.

Green Hydrogen for Humberside could lead to the production of renewable hydrogen at the gigawatt scale, distributed to a mix of industrial energy users in Immingham, Humberside, says ITM Power. Long-term, there is an opportunity to build several tens of GWs of wind power solely to generate green hydrogen offshore, says the company.