The government has unveiled a £45.7mn funding package towards projects that are looking to cut emissions from industrial processes and reduce business energy costs.
The funding is for the winners of the Red Diesel Competition (£25.7mn), Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator Programme (£7mn) and Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (£13mn). These projects include plans for a low carbon energy centre at Tweed Valley Maltings in Northumberland which, using a wind powered electric boiler, will help to cut bills and reduce emissions.
Others are a pump and motor system in an excavator at an Edinburgh quarry for Danfoss, which will help to improve energy efficiency and support the transition to electric off-road vehicles, as well as Digital Realty’s project to upgrade coolers in their data halls through switching to more efficient chillers. This will help to cut energy consumption.
As for the Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator Programme, EDF Energy Nuclear Generation has been awarded £6.1mn for its Bay Hydrogen Hub – Hydrogen4Hanson project. This is set to support decarbonisation of the asphalt and cement production industry and develop nuclear derived hydrogen production at the Heysham 2 power station.
The nuclear plant will provide electricity and steam to an onsite solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) electrolyser, which will then produce the hydrogen. This hydrogen – low carbon and low cost – will be transported in modern high-capacity Type 4 composite tankers over to Hanson’s Criggion asphalt plant in North Wales.
By pairing SOEC with nuclear heat and electricity, the efficiency of hydrogen production can be boosted by as much as 20% when compared to proton exchange membrane electrolysis. This has never been physically demonstrated before and the project, which will underpin the development of a Bay Hydrogen Hub, is also set to showcase a first-of-a-kind demonstration of hydrogen as a fuel for an asphalt plant.
The other to receive backing is the “Hydrogen for the decarbonisation of Sheffield steel” project, otherwise known as HYDESS. Led by E.ON, it has been awarded £936,758 as it looks to explore the technical and commercial feasibility for end-to-end hydrogen production, transport and end-use in the steel manufacturing industry.
In a bid to work out how to establish a technically and commercially viable pathway to converting natural gas over to hydrogen to fuel steel reheat and heat treatment furnaces, the project will produce hydrogen at E.ON’s Blacburn Meadows biomass power station. This will be stored and then transported to local steel product manufacturers. Through this, a local hydrogen economy will be created and these steel manufacturers will be empowered to decarbonise.
Featured Image: Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash
