Decarbonising UK's Largest Freight Port Using Green Hydrogen
Iberdrola, S.A.
The Iberdrola group intends to construct a big green hydrogen plant at the port of Felixtowe (England), which, with an estimated €170 million (£150 million) investment, will contribute to the decarbonisation of the largest freight port in the United Kingdom.
The project, which will be operational in 2026, will have the potential to create 14,000 tonnes per year of renewable H2 in the first phase, which can be increased in the future.
The plant will provide hydrogen to the port's vehicles and machinery and will be able to fuel up to 1,300 green hydrogen trucks. In addition, it will be used to provide clean fuel for trains delivering cargo to the port.
It might also be used to produce green ammonia or ethanol, which could supply clean fuel for shipping and create export possibilities in other international markets.
The project, which will be constructed by ScottishPower, the group's UK division, and Hutchison Ports, is anticipated to be located on brownfield land.
The green hydrogen will be produced by an electrolyzer that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable energy. The port of Felixtowe is close to the offshore wind farms that Iberdrola is creating in the seas of the British North Sea.
The company has already commissioned the 714 megawatt (MW) East Anglia ONE in this area and plans to build the East Anglia Hub offshore wind macro-complex, which will bring together three projects with a total installed capacity of 2,900 MW: East Anglia ONE North, East Anglia TWO and East Anglia THREE.
The Iberdrola group is now supporting the main green hydrogen projects in the United Kingdom, to which the Felixstowe plant has been added.
Together with Storegga, the company will create a project in Comarty, north of Inverness, for decarbonising distillery heating processes. In the first phase, beginning in 2024, it will generate up to 4,000 tonnes per year, with the possibility of expanding to 20,000 tonnes in the future.
Iberdrola will develop a green hydrogen plant at its Whitelee wind farm outside Glasgow in 2023, which would generate 3,000 tonnes of H2 per year and power up to 550 buses a day between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The UK government has invested €11 million (£9.4 million) from its energy innovation portfolio in the project's construction.
Iberdrola is pioneering the development of green hydrogen with more than 60 projects in eight countries (Spain, UK, Brazil, US) to meet decarbonisation needs.
As it did 20 years ago with renewable energy, the company has taken the lead on a new technological challenge: making and selling green hydrogen. So, Iberdrola is at the front of this new renewable energy revolution, helping industries that are hard to electrify.
The group has a portfolio of green hydrogen projects that will need 9 billion euros in investment by 2030 to produce 400,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year.
The company has worked on many projects, but one that stands out is the installation in Puertollano (Ciudad Real) of the largest green hydrogen plant for industrial use in Europe. It can make 3,000 tonnes of emission-free H2 per year by using renewable sources.
Source: Iberdrola
