Plans to develop a 700MW blue hydrogen production plant on the Thames estuary near London have advanced with the signing of two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) to evaluate shipping CO₂ from the plant to storage facilities off the coast of Aberdeen in Scotland.

Project Cavendish—which is backed by a consortium of Shell, German utility Uniper; professional services firm Arup; UK power company VPI; National Grid Ventures, the commercial arm of transmission system operator National Grid; and UK utility SSE Thermal—aims to start production at Isle of Grain in 2027, with a target annual production of 1.75GW of hydrogen and the capture of 3mn t/yr CO₂ by 2030.

The Cavendish consortium has signed an MoU with the Acorn carbon capture and storage (CCS) consortium, which is developing CO₂ storage and transport for the Scottish CCS cluster.

“This MoU with Acorn CCS is a key step that enables us to explore transporting the associated carbon emissions and storing them off the coast of Aberdeen” Bogers, Shell

Separately, Acorn has signed an MoU with Scotland’s Peterhead Port, Europe’s largest fishing port, to support the feasibility and early design work for a dedicated CO₂ handling terminal at the port by 2026.

“We and our partners in Project Cavendish are looking to producing hydrogen in the Thames estuary to serve customers in the southeast of England. This MoU with Acorn CCS is a key step that enables us to explore transporting the associated carbon emissions and storing them off the coast of Aberdeen,” says Paul Bogers, vice president for hydrogen at Shell.

The Cavendish plant is designed to help meet London’s demand for low-carbon power, heating and transport. It will be sited in close proximity to gas and electricity networks, power stations and the existing Grain LNG import facility.

Work is underway at the deepwater Peterhead Port to explore the development of a dedicated CO₂ reception terminal. The port infrastructure includes a jetty originally designed for large bulk oil tankers, delivering the feedstock for electricity generation at Peterhead power station. The jetty can be repurposed for handling both bulk CO₂ imports and hydrogen exports. Investment in a second berth is envisaged as volumes of CO₂ and hydrogen increase.

The Southampton industrial cluster, also in the running for the UK’s CCS competition, has also proposed shipping CO₂ to the North Sea to be injected into storage sites.

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Author: Stuart Penson