Oil and gas major bp has unveiled plans for a 500MWe green hydrogen project in Teeside.
HyGreen Teesside will work alongside the company’s previously proposed blue hydrogen project in the region, dubbed H2Teeside, and sit as part of the hydrogen hub. Together the projects have the potential to deliver 30% – or 1.5GW – of the UK’s 2030 hydrogen production target of 5GW, the company said.
The green hydrogen production facility is expected to be completed by 2025, with an initial install capacity of 60MWe, before scaling to its full capacity of 500MWe by 2030. bp will make a final investment decision by 2023.
“Low carbon hydrogen will be essential in decarbonising hard-to-abate industrial sectors including heavy transport,” said Louise Jacobsen Plutt, bp’s senior vice president for hydrogen and CCUS.
“Together, HyGreen and H2Teesside can help transform Teesside into the UK’s green heart, strengthening its people, communities and businesses. This is exactly the type of energy we want to create and more importantly deliver.”
bp has signed a series of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with potential industrial customers in the Teesside area, including a recent MoU with Daimler Truck to pilot the infrastructure and introduction of hydrogen-powered fuel-cell trucks in the UK.
The development of green hydrogen builds on bp’s expanding business portfolio, which also includes 3GW gross of offshore wind in the Irish Sea and its target of 16,000 UK electric vehicle charging points by 2030 – the first of its rapid charging hubs for fleet vehicles was opened in June, in a step forwards for this goal.
Following the release of the government’s Hydrogen Strategy in August, there has been a stream of green hydrogen announcements. In November, Octopus Hydrogen and Octopus Renewables partnered mobility R&D location MIRA Technology Park for the development of a hydrogen and electric vehicle charging forecourt.
Meanwhile in October, Octopus Renewables announced a £3 billion investment into green hydrogen through a new partnership with RES, a consortium led by Macquarie GIG announced a plan to develop green hydrogen on Orkney that utilises offshore wind and Octopus Hydrogen formed a strategic partnership with Innova Renewables and Novus to rollout green hydrogen production.
Teesside has seen focused activity, due to it being chosen to be the UK’s first hydrogen transport hub in March and receiving £3 million in investment to develop Tees Valley. As such, UK green hydrogen company Protium has announced it is to build a 40MW project in Teesside, for example.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps welcomed bp’s hydrogen development as “excellent news following the recent COP26 summit”.
“It’ll help pave the way for its use across all transport modes, creating high-quality, green jobs in the process,” he added.
