BP plans 1 GW hydrogen hub for Teesside

BP is planning to build a 1 GW hydrogen production project in Teesside, UK, that would meet 20% of the UK’s hydrogen targets and capture the emissions from the heating of 1 m homes.

A feasibility study is underway to review the technologies that could capture carbon emissions from the reformation of natural gas. The H2Teesside project would be developed in stages with an initial 500 MW of blue hydrogen production coming onstream by 2027 and additional capacity by 2030 as demand in the region increases.

A final investment decision is expected in early 2024. BP says the project will connect with the other decarbonisation projects that it is leading in the region. These are Net Zero Teesside (NZT), which plans to capture up to 6m t/y of emissions from industry sites in the region, and the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP), which would develop the infrastructure to pipe and store captured emissions beneath the North Sea.

Teesside and the surrounding region accounts for more than 5% of the UK’s industrial emissions and is home to five of the country’s top 25 emitters. Hydrogen from the project could replace the natural gas used by industry for feedstocks and process heat, and the gas used to heat homes.

BP has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Venator, which makes titanium dioxide pigments and performance additives, to scope the supply of hydrogen to its Teesside plant. It has also agreed an MoU with Northern Gas Networks (NGN), the gas distributor for the North of England, to work together on decarbonising industrial and residential gas supplies.

Dev Sanyal, BP’s Executive Vice President of Gas and Low Carbon Energy said: “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.”

UK Energy Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan, 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.”

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: “Growing the clean energy sector across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool is a key part of my plan for jobs, a plan that is delivering the clean, high skilled, well-paid jobs which are essential for our future. This is a huge vote of confidence in our region and puts Teesside at the forefront of efforts to achieve the Government’s ambitious target for the UK to be the world’s first major economy to be net zero, by 2050.”

By 2030, the UK Government wants to support the development of four industrial CCUS clusters, develop 5 GW of hydrogen production capacity, and capture 10m t/y of CO2.

Separately, BP has signed an MoU with Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) to explore the potential for a hydrogen transport hub. This would produce green hydrogen by electrolysing water using renewable power.

Source: thechemicalengineer.com

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