UK Govt funding for Whitelee Windfarm hydrogen production and storage facility

The Green Hydrogen for Scotland Consortium has been awarded funding from the UK Government’s Department of Business, Energy, Innovation and Skills’ Energy Innovation Portfolio competition (BEIS).

ScottishPower’s 20MW Whitelee Windfarm hydrogen production and storage facility will receive £9.4 million in Energy Innovation Portfolio funding to support the first phase of development. ScottishPower, BOC, and ITM Power are the partners in the Green Hydrogen for Scotland Consortium.

The Energy Innovation Portfolio funding will go toward a 10MW electrolyser and four tonnes of storage, which will be the first phase of a 20MW facility that will be built at Whitelee Wind Farm near Glasgow, the UK’s largest onshore wind farm, for which a planning application was submitted on April 12, 2021. The project is part of ITM Power’s recently announced contracts backlog (under negotiation).

Glasgow aims to become the first net-zero city in the UK by 2030, with the project providing carbon-free transportation and clean air for communities across the city and wider central belt region. By the end of 2023, the facility hopes to be supplying hydrogen to the commercial market.

The funding represents a significant step forward in the development of commercial-scale green hydrogen production, ensuring that the transportation and industrial sectors have access to zero-emission hydrogen as the world moves away from fossil fuels. This clean, green form of hydrogen will be critical in reducing carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions across the economy by using renewable electricity and water as inputs to the hydrogen production process.

The Energy Innovation Portfolio competition sought innovative, replicable large-scale energy storage solutions that could compete with commercial large-scale energy storage technologies. Large-scale energy storage that is innovative will be critical in decarbonizing industry, power, heat, and transportation.

Graham Cooley, CEO, said: “We are very pleased to be a partner in Green Hydrogen for Scotland and this first project, Green Hydrogen for Glasgow, will see the deployment of the largest electrolyser to date in the UK.”

Barry Carruthers, ScottishPower Hydrogen Director, said: “Now COP26 has ended, we need to continue to move forward, taking action to invest in the clean, green energy the UK needs to reach Net Zero. As Principal Partner for the conference we welcome this investment in a blend of renewable electricity generation and green hydrogen production promises to highlight the multiple ways in which society can decarbonise by using these technologies here and now.”

Jim Mercer, Business President, BOC UK & Ireland said: “The Green Hydrogen for Glasgow project is both innovative and exciting. It will help to shape the future of energy storage and demonstrate the value of hydrogen to Scotland’s growing low-carbon economy. This project will accelerate development across multiple disciplines – from production and storage, to transportation and end use.”