Norwegian state-owned energy company Equinor has tripled its target for clean hydrogen production in the UK to 1.8GW.

Under the expanded target, Equinor would deploy an additional 1.2GW of blue hydrogen capacity in the UK, principally to fuel the Keadby 100pc hydrogen power station which it is developing with UK utility SSE Thermal in Yorkshire.

Keadby could come online before the end of the decade “with appropriate policy mechanisms in place”, says Equinor.

1.2GW – Additional hydrogen production capacity under new target

“Without CCS and hydrogen, at scale, there is no viable path to net zero and realising the Paris goals. Our low-carbon projects in the UK build on our own industrial experience and will play a major role in setting the UK’s industrial heartlands in a leading position,” Equinor’s president and CEO Anders Opedal told UK Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and Norway’s Energy Minister Tina Bru at a meeting this week in Oslo, according to a statement.

The Norwegian company already has plans to install a 600MW gas reformer to produce hydrogen from natural gas with carbon capture, enabling fuel switching by industrial users at the UK’s Saltend Chemicals Park and the onsite Saltend Cogeneration Power plant.

Equinor’s UK projects will contribute to the supply of hydrogen and low carbon solutions to “three to five industrial clusters by 2035”, Opedal says.

SSE Thermal and Equinor are also developing plans to build a 900MW gas-fired power plant with CCS at Peterhead on the east coast of Scotland.

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Author: Stuart Penson