The Northern Powerhouse Partnership has launched a five-point plan to “turbocharge Northern productivity and transform the economy”, with green hydrogen at the heart of it.
Setting the scene, the partnership detailed how net zero goes “hand in hand” with levelling up the North. While the region has considerable renewable energy assets, too much of the green economy’s manufacturing supply chains lie overseas. More investment is needed in R&D to develop clean technologies, in local supply chains and in skills, enabling people to access new green jobs.
The North also needs access to cheap, reliable decarbonised energy, which is crucial to steel production, as well as other supply chains. Its recommendations therefore include an expansion of green hydrogen production, storage and distribution, as well as for the selection of Viking as a Track-2 cluster to unlock £15n in private investment from Drax, Phillips 66 and other businesses that lie in the Humber.
It also called for a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) to be deployed, citing them as a “significant export opportunity” which would allow the region to build up its nuclear capacity and boost its supply chains, and for a retrofit of domestic and commercial buildings while taking steps to secure a UK and Northern supply chain for heat pumps, insulation and other technologies.
