Norway-based Equinor is leading a project to develop one of the UK’s – and the world’s – first at-scale facilities to produce hydrogen from natural gas in combination with carbon capture and storage (CCS). The project, called Hydrogen to Humber Saltend (H2H Saltend), provides the beginnings of a decarbonised industrial cluster in the Humber region, the UK’s largest by emissions.

H2H Saltend supports the UK Government’s aim to establish at least one low carbon industrial cluster by 2030 and the world’s first net zero cluster by 2040. It also paves the way for the vision set out by the Zero Carbon Humber alliance, which Equinor and its partners launched in 2019.

It will be located at Saltend Chemicals Park near Hull and its initial phase comprises a 600MW automatic thermal reformer (ATR) with carbon capture — the largest plant of its kind in the world — to convert natural gas to hydrogen.

The project will enable industrial customers at Saltend to fully switch over to hydrogen, and the power plant to move to a 30% hydrogen to natural gas blend. As a result, emissions from the industrial park will reduce by nearly 900,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

In its later phases, H2H Saltend can expand to serve other industrial users in the park and around the Humber, which employs 55,000 people in the manufacturing sector alone, contributing to the cluster reaching net zero by 2040.

This will enable a large-scale hydrogen network, open to both blue hydrogen (produced from natural gas with CCS) and green hydrogen (produced from electrolysis of water using renewable power), as well as a network for transporting and storing captured CO₂ emissions. It is estimated that fuel switching to hydrogen could create 43,000 new job opportunities in energy-intensive industrial sectors around the UK.

Irene Rummelhoff, Equinor executive vice president for marketing, midstream and processing, said: “The world continues to need more energy at lower emissions so we can achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. This necessitates a substantial decarbonisation of industry, in which we believe carbon capture and storage and hydrogen can, and must, play a significant role.

“With private and public investment and supportive UK policy, the H2H Saltend project will demonstrate the potential of these technologies. Together we can make the Humber and the UK a world-leading example that others can learn from.”

Al Cook, executive vice president and Equinor’s UK country manager, said: “As the UK’s leading supplier of energy, we are proud of the role our natural gas and offshore wind has played in reducing carbon emissions in power. Now we want to go further by bringing hydrogen to the Humber region.

“With our partners, we plan to transform the UK’s largest industrial cluster into its greenest cluster.”

H2H Saltend will be part of the Zero Carbon Humber alliance’s application for public co-funding in the second phase of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, which launched on 23 June. Subject to supportive UK policy, Equinor and its partners will mature the project towards a final investment decision during 2023 with potential first production by 2026.

In 2018 Equinor, Northern Gas Networks and Cadent, published the H21 North of England report showing how blue hydrogen could be produced and supplied to millions of homes and businesses in the north of England.

Equinor is also a partner in the Net Zero Teesside development which proposes to build a new-build gas-fired power station with carbon capture, and extending the CCS infrastructure to the neighbouring industrial cluster.