Three companies have been awarded contracts to design a hydrogen production and carbon capture plant for Uniper and Shell on the South Humber Bank.
Three companies will compete to deliver the Humber H2ub concept, carry it through the front-end engineering and design phase, and maybe all the way to operation: Air Liquide Engineering & Construction, Shell Catalysts & Technologies, and Technip Energies.
The action, which comes nearly three months after the German government nationalized Uniper as a stabilization move over the energy crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, will be welcomed by businesses. While it was said there were no plans to sell at the time, no guidance was provided regarding suggestions for such investments at the Killingholme Power Station, which had been initially made public in April.
The Uniper Energy Transformation Hub Killingholme includes the Humber H2ub, and plans for a separate green hydrogen project that will use renewable energy as a feedstock are also moving forward.
During this phase, 720 megawatts of gas reformation would be used to produce low-carbon fuel, which would be sufficient to heat 500,000 households. However, utilization will be geared toward industry, with the Humber’s process and power plants flipping while transportation takes a different path. As part of the Zero Carbon Humber plan, Uniper would also yearly capture almost 1.6 million tonnes of carbon.
“The winning of process design package contracts is a key step towards our objectives for low-carbon hydrogen generation at Killingholme,” said Guy Phillips, senior business development manager for hydrogen at Uniper. The biggest industrial region for CO2 emissions in the UK will benefit from this. The Humber region and this project will both help the UK reach its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 by using hydrogen as one of the answers.
In the middle of the 2020s, a final investment choice is anticipated. The Energy Estuary, one of the most polluted areas in Europe, is the target of a £15 billion decarbonization initiative, which includes a number of hydrogen-generating plants.
