B.P. is working on a massive 'blue hydrogen' facility in the U.K

March 18, 2021: On Thursday, B.P. said it was working on plans for a significant facility that could generate around 1 gigawatt of “blue hydrogen” by 2030. 

Blue hydrogen refers to hydrogen produced using natural gas, with the CO2 emissions generated while the process is captured and stored.

The proposed development, described by B.P. as the United Kingdom’s “largest hydrogen project,” would be based in Teesside, north-east England.

According to the oil and gas giant, the H2Teesside development would “capture and send for storage” around two million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. The U.K. government wants to have 5 G.W. of low-carbon hydrogen capacity by 2030.

A final investment decision on the development will come in 2024. If all goes to plan, 500 megawatts of capacity could be produced by 2027 or earlier, B.P. said. Capacity refers to the maximum amount a facility can have.

“Blue hydrogen, integrated with carbon capture and storage, can provide the scale and reliability needed by industrial processes,” Dev Sanyal, B.P.’s executive vice president of gas and low carbon energy, said.

“It can also play an essential role in decarbonizing hard-to-electrify industries and driving down the cost of the energy transition,” he added.

In recent years, several large industrial firms have announced plans to integrate green hydrogen into their operations. Some major economies like the European Union have laid out plans to install 40 gigawatts of renewable hydrogen electrolyzers by 2030.

The incoming CEO of German utility RWE stressed the vital role hydrogen could play in the decarbonization of energy-intensive industries earlier this week.