ScottishPower’s parent company Iberdrola and oil and gas giant bp have announced a new strategic partnership to develop green hydrogen.
The companies will look to develop large-scale production of green hydrogen with a target of up to 600ktpa production capacity, integrated with new renewable power, across UK, Spain and Portugal.
Derivatives such as green ammonia and methanol could be exported to Northern Europe following the developing of the green hydrogen capacity.
Additionally, across Spain and Portugal Iberdrola and bp will jointly invest up to £840 million (€1 billion) into deploying up to 11,000 fast electric vehicle (EV) charge points.
In the UK, they will also look at options to jointly serve EV customers, the companies stated.
“With bp, we intend to help advance in the decarbonisation and energy self-sufficiency through the electrification of two key sectors of our economy, transport and industry,” said chairman of Iberdrola, Ignacio Galán.
“The scale of this challenge requires alliances between companies such as Iberdrola and bp, which have the technology and knowledge necessary to help accelerate Europe’s industrial development and generate, at the same time, well-being and new opportunities for all through clean energy.”
Both companies are already involved in green hydrogen projects in the UK, with ScottishPower and carbon capture company Storegga announcing a series of green hydrogen projects in the Highlands in May. The company is also developing the Whitelee green hydrogen project, which was awarded £9.4 million in funding in November 2021.
Meanwhile bp unveiled plans for a 500MWe green hydrogen project dubbed HyGreen Teesside in November 2021.
“Creating the lower carbon energy solutions that our customers want and need requires the integration of different technologies, capabilities and forms of energy,” said Bernard Looney, CEO, bp.
“We can deliver this faster and at scale when we work in partnership with others. We have enormous respect for Iberdrola who have been an early leader in the energy transition – and are very excited about what we can deliver together.”
Developing of green hydrogen projects in the UK has been growing over the last year, following the release of the government’s hydrogen strategy in August 2021, which outlined a target of 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030.
In addition to ScottishPower and bp’s projects, Octopus Hydrogen and BayWa r.e. have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of green hydrogen sites and Macquarie’s GIG has announced a plan to develop a site on Orkney, amongst others.