ScottishPower will be building £150 million green hydrogen facility

ScottishPower will be building £150 million green hydrogen facility

August 12, 2022 0 By Tami Hood

The plant will be built at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk and will begin operating in 2026.

ScottishPower has announced its intentions to build a £150 million green hydrogen plant at the Port of Felixstowe. The H2 produced there will power trucks, trains and ships for zero-emission operations.

The energy company will be providing the H2 that will support the transition away from fossil fuels.

ScottishPower has already drawn up the proposals for a 100-megawatt green hydrogen plant in Suffolk. The facility will provide adequate energy for powering 1,300 H2-powered trucks beginning in 2026.

The energy company is owned by Iberdrola, a €63 billion utilities giant from Spain. It said that the demand for renewable H2 has risen sharply as the prices of gasoline and diesel shot upwards starting last year. This gave the company the drive it needed to invest in the clean energy.

The company has filed an application with the UK government’s Net Zero Hydrogen Fund. That fund offers state support for the development of low-carbon H2 projects over the next three years. Estimates from ScottishPower indicate that the cost of the project will land within the range of £100 million and £150 million.

Green hydrogen - GBP - stacks of bills

The new green hydrogen plant is expected to be about the size of a soccer field.

The plant will be located on one of the busiest ports in the United Kingdom, which is also an important trade hub. The intention is for the H2 to be used for the vehicles and machinery the Port of Felixstowe uses. The port is owned by Hutchison Ports, part of CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based multinational.

Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk

Every year, around 6,000 heavy goods vehicles use the port. To an increasing extent, logistics providers have been examining the potential offered by H2 as an option for reducing both the cost of fuel and the carbon emissions generated by the use of the vehicles. The H2 will also be used to run rail freight trains into the port as well as the shipping vessels headed out.

Glasgow-based ScottishPower already has substantial interests in East Anglia. It has offshore windfarms there. The largest green hydrogen production site for industrial use in Europe is owned by Iberdrola. That facility Is located in Spain at Puertollano.

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