Decarbonisation Technology August 2022 issue

Northern Endurance Partnership

East Coast Cluster

CCUS

1 GW Blue hydrogen

Green hydrogen

Figure 1 bp’s planned hydrogen projects on Teesside

Blue hydrogen will play a vital role in helping to decarbonise sectors where direct electrification is likely to be technologically very challenging or prohibitively expensive, such as steel production and long-distance shipping. It will also be vital in the scale-up and transition to hydrogen more broadly. Through H2Teesside, we have the opportunity to supply a diverse range of customers, including those already established in the region and new businesses attracted to this low-carbon hydrogen produced at scale. The CO₂ captured at H2Teesside will be transported and stored by the Northern Endurance Partnership, a joint venture whose partners include bp (who is also the operator), Equinor, Shell, TotalEnergies, and National Grid Ventures. Gas-fired power station with carbon capture Also using this infrastructure will be another bp-led project, Net Zero Teesside Power, which is aiming to be the world’s first commercial-scale gas-fired power station with carbon capture. This will be a large-scale 860 MW gas-fired power station. That is enough low-carbon electricity to provide power to 1.3 million homes, or 5% of all UK homes. It is also power that can be dialled up or down and switched on or off as needed. And it is power with a very big difference – it will be low carbon.

The plant is a joint venture between bp and Equinor, with bp as operator. A project of this nature has been discussed in the energy industry for decades, so it is incredibly exciting to see it finally in sight. A Development Consent Order has been submitted, and Front-End Engineering Design is underway. Together, H2Teesside and Net Zero Teesside Power will capture up to four million tonnes of CO₂ per year, roughly comparable to the emissions from heating two million homes. This CO₂ will be captured and piped 145 miles to be stored safely in the rocks beneath the North Sea via the Northern Endurance Partnership. Hydrogen through electrolysis of water We are also developing HyGreen Teesside, a green hydrogen project that uses a different technology – producing hydrogen through the electrolysis of water. In this process, electrolysis splits and separates the hydrogen from the oxygen molecules. And if the electricity used is from renewable sources, the hydrogen produced is known as green hydrogen – a zero-carbon fuel. HyGreen Teesside aims to be one of the UK’s largest green hydrogen production plants, ramping up over the next decade from 60 to 500 MW. This is a really important and strategic project for bp because we need to make advances in green hydrogen. We need to make it efficient and commercially viable.