Essar oil to set up hydrogen project in UK

NEW DELHI:  Essar Oil UK will build the country’s first low-carbon hydrogen hub along with UK-based Progressive Energy, at the former’s Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. The low carbon hydrogen hub will initially produce three terawatt-hours (TWh) of low carbon hydrogen each year from 2025, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

This will be quickly followed by a facility twice this size giving a total capacity of over 9 TWh of hydrogen per annum, equivalent to the energy used for heating across the whole of Liverpool. Total investment of 750 million pounds will be committed to deliver the two hydrogen production hubs. The refinery will be converted to burn hydrogen instead of natural gas. 

“It (the project) will provide Essar Oil UK with low carbon hydrogen to decarbonise its own energy demand in addition to creating a hydrogen economy across North West England and North East Wales,” the statement said. The hydrogen production hub will deliver clean energy to industry in the HyNet ‘low carbon cluster’, and to fuel buses, trains and heavy goods vehicles, to heat homes, as well as to generate electricity when the sun is not shining.