ITM Power wins first-stage decarbonisation deployment project

Energy storage and clean fuel company ITM Power has won, along with partner Element Energy, a first-stage deployment project in the UK Government's Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund competition ‘Decarbonisation of Industrial Clusters’, it announced on Thursday.

The AIM-traded firm said the project would assess the feasibility and scope of deploying green hydrogen with “major” industrial partners in Humberside.

It said ‘Green Hydrogen for Humberside’ would lead to the production of renewable hydrogen at the gigawatt-scale, distributed to a mix of industrial energy users in Immingham, Humberside.

Decarbonisation of the cluster was described as “critical” in reaching the UK's legally-binding 2050 net zero emission targets.

Humberside - the UK's largest cluster by industrial emissions - contributes £18bn to the national economy each year, and has access to a large renewable resource from offshore wind in the North Sea.

ITM Power said the project would work with customers in the region to establish the feasibility of switching to renewable hydrogen, and justify a number of 100MW deployments of electrolysers.

The project would cost the supply of hydrogen to those end users.

That, the board said, included the electricity supply to the electrolyser, the hydrogen production facility, hydrogen distribution across the Humber and the conversion of existing processes to use renewable hydrogen.

ITM Power described ‘Green Hydrogen for Humberside’ would be an important part of the decarbonisation vision for the region by enabling both an early bulk-scale supply of zero carbon fuel, and the subsequent expansion of supply via a progression in electrolyser capacity out to 2040.

The region was divided into a northern and southern cluster, it explained, adding that the southern cluster at Immingham was the most carbon intensive, and had access to renewable electricity from gigawatt-scale offshore wind farms, which come ashore in the region.

Long-term, there was an opportunity to build several tens of gigawatts of wind power, solely to generate green hydrogen offshore.

That made Immingham an attractive location for the production of low-cost renewable hydrogen for industrial decarbonisation as part of the wider ‘Zero Carbon Humber’ roadmap, the board said.

Since there were no emissions associated with the production of renewable hydrogen, the emission saving potential for industrial processes converting to hydrogen was 100%, ITM Power explained.

The skills gained from creating the first renewable hydrogen cluster would be leveraged in other UK clusters and internationally, which the board said would make the UK “an international centre” for “renewable hydrogen excellence”.

That would also help support a UK supply chain in the manufacture and deployment of electrolyser products through ITM Power's manufacturing plant in South Yorkshire.

“This is the first of what we believe will be many projects to set out a roadmap to achieving the UK's ambitious net zero by 2050 target,” said chief executive officer Graham Cooley.

“Humberside has both renewable energy and heavy industry, making it an ideal test bed for industrial scale green hydrogen production and distribution.”

At 1530 BST, shares in ITM Power were up 14.47% at 140.8p.