The UK government has announced £30 million of funding for five large-scale hydrogen projects.
The funding is part of a wider £90 million package announced to help tackle emissions from home and heavy industry, and will back the development of Europe’s first large-scale hydrogen production plants.
The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has awarded £3.12 million of funding to ERM’s Dolphyn project and £7.5 million to ITM Power’s Gigastack project, both of which focus on the production of hydrogen from offshore wind.
Dolphyn’s funding will enable it to develop its offshore electrolyser design further and apply for consent for a 2 MW prototype facility.
ITM’s funding will enable it to develop a system that uses electricity from Orsted’s Hornsea Two offshore wind farm to generate renewable hydrogen for the Phillips 66 Humber refinery.
Other projects to win financing include Progressive Energy’s HyNet project (£7.48 million), Pale Blue Dot’s Acorn project (£2.7 million), and Cranfield University’s HyPER project (£7.44 million).
Tim Strawn, Regional CEO at ERM said: “ERM’s Dolphyn project provides a significant opportunity to progress towards a carbon neutral society. The UK government’s support of this project has accelerated our ability to demonstrate that zero carbon gas can be generated commercially at large scale for use across the UK. This is an extremely exciting project for ERM which we believe will provide a real world solution for addressing the energy transition need.”
The £90 million funding package also includes a number of local smart energy project aimed at harnessing local resources to reduce household emissions. Minster for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, Kwasi Kwarteng, said: “Hydrogen offers the opportunity of a cleaner, greener fuel for heating our homes and getting us from A to B.”
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