A consortium comprising renewables developer Progressive Energy, power producer Statkraft and asset manager Foresight has committed to developing green hydrogen projects in the North West of England.
The partners have signed a collaboration agreement which will see the development of an initial phase of 100MW of projects.
The proposed 28MW Cheshire Green Hydrogen project will be included in the project portfolio. This project will generate green hydrogen from renewable electricity from Foresight’s managed Frodsham wind farm in Cheshire. The hydrogen will be used to decarbonise local villages and industries.
Adam Baddeley, head of Industrial Hydrogen at Progressive Energy, said: “The North West is an ideal place to deploy green hydrogen production. Not only can it be distributed at low-cost via the HyNet pipeline network, but we have a large number of industry sites ready and enthusiastic to switch to low carbon hydrogen from fossil gas.”
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The consortium is also looking to develop green hydrogen projects co-located at major manufacturing sites within the region.
Thus far, five ‘hydrogen-ready’ sites have been selected for the first phase of development. At each site, green hydrogen will replace fossil gas to fuel manufacturing processes.
Statkraft’s wind and solar project portfolio will be used to supplement power requirements at the sites.
Each plant will connect to the HyNet hydrogen pipeline network and the hydrogen will also be stored within HyNet’s underground salt caverns.
Matt Kelly, head of RES eFuels at Statkraft UK, commented: “Producing home-grown green hydrogen is a key part in helping the UK to move to a more sustainable future and is a crucial part of the future energy mix. We’re excited to build on our recent green hydrogen announcements in the UK and build on the expertise in this consortium to bring these projects to fruition in the North West of England.”
