BP is in the midst of planning a large-scale hydrogen-production facility in the Teesside area of northern England that may be operational as soon as 2025.
The company confirmed in a release on 29 November that the initial phase of the project, called HyGreen Teesside, is slated to have 60 MW of electrolyzer capacity by 2025—or enough hydrogen output to fuel about 1,300 trucks. The project is pending a final investment decision that BP said it expects to make by 2023.
The London-listed supermajor said, depending on demand, additional buildout of the facility could scale hydrogen production up to 500 MW of electrolyzer capacity by 2030. As the name suggests, HyGreen Teesside is to rely on renewable sources of electricity to generate “green” hydrogen for use in the transportation and industrial sectors.
BP said that the industrial base in Teesside represents more than 5% of the UK’s industrial emissions and features five of its top 25 largest sources of emissions.
Together with BP’s previously announced project, H2Teesside, the company said it is aiming to meet at least 30% of the UK’s goal to reach 5 GW of domestic hydrogen production capacity by 2030.
With startup planned for 2027, H2Teesside will produce 1 GW of “blue” hydrogen by combining steam/methane reforming with a carbon capture, storage, and utilization (CCUS) capacity of up to 2 million tons of CO2/year.
“Low-carbon hydrogen will be essential in decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial sectors including heavy transport. Together, HyGreen and H2Teesside can help transform Teesside into the UK’s green heart, strengthening its people, communities, and businesses," Louise Jacobsen Plutt, senior vice president for hydrogen and CCUS at BP, said in a statement.
The BP-operated H2Teesside project was selected for government funding in October and is part of a wider CCUS initiative led by the Northern Endurance Partnership, which includes non-operating partners Eni, Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies.
Additionally, BP said it is exploring opportunities to generate green hydrogen at its refineries in the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. Other potential locations for hydrogen projects include western Australia and around Aberdeen, Scotland, where BP was selected by the local government as the preferred bidder to build a hydrogen production hub that also is pending a final investment decision in 2023.
