British energy giant BP announced plans for the UK’s largest blue hydrogen production facility, H2Teesside, targeting 1 gigawatt (GW) of hydrogen production by 2030.
In a statement on Thursday, BP said the project would capture and send for storage up to two million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, equivalent to capturing the emissions from the heating of one million UK households.
With the proposed development in Teesside in the northeast of England, the oil company aims to make a major contribution to the UK’s target of developing 5 GW of hydrogen production by 2030.
“Clean hydrogen is an essential complement to electrification on the path to net zero. Blue hydrogen, integrated with carbon capture and storage, can provide the scale and reliability needed by industrial processes. It can also play an essential role in decarbonizing hard-to-electrify industries and driving down the cost of the energy transition,” Dev Sanyal, BP’s executive vice president of gas and low carbon energy, was quoted as saying in the statement.
The production start is planned for 2027 or earlier with a final investment decision expected in early 2024.
By 2050, hydrogen could account for around 16% of all the world’s energy needs, according to BP’s energy outlook.
Green hydrogen is made using electricity from renewable sources to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, in a process known as electrolysis, BP explained.
-What is blue hydrogen?
Blue hydrogen is derived from the breaking down of the methane molecule in natural gas, which consists of carbon and hydrogen combined, to produce and capture carbon. If carbon is not captured, it is known as grey hydrogen.
The high production cost of hydrogen at scale, which costs more than other fuels, is the main reason preventing hydrogen from being used much “particularly if you want to make emissions-free green or blue hydrogen,” the company explained.
By Sibel Morrow
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr