Spanish logistics firm Exolum has said it will construct a green hydrogen production plant and refuelling station in Stockton-on-Tees.
The plant is part of the Tees Valley Hydrogen Transport Hub and, as a result, received a total of £7 million of funding from the Department for Transport in partnership with Innovate UK.
£2 million of the funding has been allocated to the construction of a hydrogen refuelling station, whilst the other £5 million has been awarded to Exolum’s consortium partners to deploy at least 20 hydrogen fuel cell trucks in the region.
These partners include UK fuel cell electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Electra Commercial Vehicles and German manufacturer Quantron AG, in partnership with Novuna Vehicle Solutions, and will aim to produce trucks ranging from 4.2 to 27 tonnes.
The plant itself, due to be fully operational in 2025, plans to use an electrolyser which will produce green hydrogen using renewable electricity and will supply both the refuelling station, with a capacity of 1.5 tonnes per day, and other customers in the area using a “hub and spoke” delivery model.
Exolum did not disclose the size of the green hydrogen production plant.
Andrés Suarez, clean energies lead at Exolum said: “At Exolum we want to be a relevant player in green hydrogen technology, which is positioning itself as an efficient energy vector to help decarbonise sectors that are difficult to electrify, such as heavy-duty mobility.
“This project in the UK comes in addition to others we have under development and others already fully implemented, such as the first hydrogen plant for mobility in Madrid, Spain.”
UK’s hydrogen growth
There has been steady growth in the UK green hydrogen sector as it attempts to catch up to more prominent industries, namely wind and solar.
In October 2022, developer Carlton Power secured planning permission for its low-carbon hydrogen fuel hub, part of a £300 million 200MW Trafford Green Hydrogen scheme.
More recently, in December 2023, the UK government supported the onset of 11 green hydrogen production projects, set to deliver 125MW of new hydrogen for UK businesses.
These projects will invest more than £400 million into the UK renewable energy industry over the next three years, as well as generating over 700 jobs.
Carlton Power was one of the successful companies involved in the scheme, bagging three of the 11 projects – a 200MW project located in Trafford in Greater Manchester, 30MW in Barrow-in-Furness (Cumbria), and a 10MW project near Plymouth (Devon).