Construction of the UK's first facility to convert waste plastic into hydrogen came a step closer to realisation this week, with the completion of an assessment phase covering the project's design, engineering challenges, and costs.

The project, which gained planning consent from Cheshire West and Chester Council in March this year, will cost £20m, the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study concluded.  The facility is set to be situated within Peel L&P Environmental's flagship Protos energy hub, located near Ellesmore Port between Manchester and Liverpool. It will use Distributed Modular Generation technology developed by Powerhouse Energy at the neighbouring Thornton Science Park to perform the conversion, creating renewable hydrogen to fuel cars, buses, and HGVs.

Peel L&P said it intends to make the project a trailblazer for many similar facilities, with 11 such plants planned across the UK in the next few years and an ambition to build dozens more in support of the UK's net zero transition.

"This FEED phase is an important step forward in delivering this innovative technology at Protos," said Richard Barker, director at Peel L&P Environmental.

"Working with Powerhouse Energy we're creating a blueprint for this UK first plastic-to-hydrogen facility, with plans to roll out over 70 more across the UK."

Peel is currently applying for an environmental permit for the plant and hopes to begin construction later this year, Barker added.

The plastic to hydrogen facility is the first part of a 'plastic park' planned at Peel's Protos site, which aims to pioneer a number of different approaches to tackling the 4.9 million tonnes plastic waste mountain that is generated every year in the UK.

Late last year, development also began on the UK's first commercial-scale Bio-Substitute Natural Gas plant (BioSNG) at the Protos site. The biogas plant has the potential to be reconfigured to produce renewable hydrogen, Peel L&P said, linking it and the waste plastic facility into plans to build a hydrogen network in the region, as part of the HyNet North West project, which advocates argue could deliver net zero emissions by 2038.

 

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