Plan for world-leading clean hydrogen plant in the UK

Norway’s Equinor is leading a project to develop what is claimed to be 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.

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. Its initial phase comprises a 600 MW auto thermal reformer (ATR) with carbon capture, reportedly 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 t/y of CO₂ says Equinor.

In its later phases, H2H Saltend could 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.

H2H Saltend will be part of the Zero Carbon Humber alliance’s application for public co-funding 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 (FID) 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 FID on Northern Lights, Europe’s first commercial-scale carbon transportation and storage project off the coast of Norway. If the Norwegian government makes a positive FID in 2020, the first phase is expected to be operational by 2024.

Humber bridge – H2H Saltend will provide the beginnings of a decarbonised industrial cluster in the Humber region, the UK’s largest by emissions
Photo: Pixabay