East Coast Hydrogen looks set to connect up to 11GW of hydrogen production by 2030, meaning a lone region will surpass the government’s goal for 10GW of production by the end of the decade.
Northern Gas Networks, Cadent and National Gas launched a Delivery Plan, within which they set out what it is going to take to realise a host of benefits including 58TWh of natural gas being converted to hydrogen by 2037, whole system resilience and flexibility through providing access to storage and cutting curtailment with green hydrogen facilities, £27bn GVA across the North East, East Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber region through to 2050, and 360,000 jobs by developing a full hydrogen value chain.
It also highlighted the progress since the launch of its initial feasibility study back in December 2021, showing how detail and ambition has progressed in the region since. Demand forecasts have been refined, with an additional 4.5GW of production capacity entering into development as well as an extra 0.7TWh of storage capacity.
This now means that the region is set for over 63TWh of hydrogen demand per year by 2037 across industrial and commercial, power and aviation sectors, which could lead to 12MtCO2 a year in carbon emissions being abated. Furthermore, up to 83TWh of hydrogen production is now planned per year in the East Coast region for 2037, with 10.7TWh of storage set to be deployed by mid-century with four large-scale sites due to be connected across the North Humber and Teesside.
While the potential is considerable, more work is needed to ensure the benefits can be made into a reality and the programme itself come fully to fruition. For government and wider industry, this is going to mean making a decision on hydrogen blending, finalising business models for the transport and storage of hydrogen that offer the right incentives for investment, support for the development of hydrogen storage facilities and hydrogen offtake agreements, and supporting projects through further rounds of the cluster sequencing and hydrogen allocation processes.
For East Coast Hydrogen, future actions will include providing evidence to the UK government and regulators through trials and technical assessment results which are able to then support policy decisions, ensuring sufficient engagement with both Ofgem and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to share key insights from the programme and be aware of any policy changes, and supporting initiatives which are able to unlock further investment into the wider hydrogen economy and the decarbonisation plans of respective stakeholders connected to the project.
