Essar and Progressive Energy join forces to deliver UK hydrogen production hub

Essar and Progressive Energy are to set up a venture to produce low carbon hydrogen at Essar’s Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, UK. The joint venture will manufacture hydrogen at the refinery for use by Essar Oil UK and across the HyNet North West decarbonisation cluster region in north-west England and north-east Wales. Aiming to be the UK’s first net zero refinery, the Stanlow project aims to capture over 2 mn t/y of CO₂, equivalent to taking nearly a million cars off the road.

Natural gas and fuel gases from the refinery will be converted into low carbon hydrogen, with CO₂ captured and stored offshore in sub-surface reservoirs in Liverpool Bay. The hydrogen production hub will deliver clean energy to industry in the HyNet ‘low carbon cluster’, as well as to fuel buses, trains and heavy goods vehicles, to heat homes, and to generate electricity when the sun is not shining or the wind blowing.

The low carbon hydrogen hub will initially produce 3 terawatt-hours (TWh) of low carbon hydrogen each year from 2025. This will be followed by a facility twice this size, giving a total capacity of over 9 TWh/y of hydrogen, equivalent to the energy used for heating across the whole of Liverpool. A total investment of approximately £750mn will be committed to deliver the two hydrogen production hubs. Follow on capacity growth is planned to reach 80% of the UK government’s new target of 5 GW of low carbon hydrogen for power, transport, industry and homes by 2030.