UKRI invests £33M in HyNet North West project

Eni collaborated on the HyNet North West integrated initiative, which aims to decarbonize the vital industrial district in the North-West of England.

The project secured £33 million in funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK Government’s agency that funds research and innovation in the region, through the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC) fund.

The financing covers nearly half of the expenditure needed to conclude current planning studies, with the goal of making the site operational by 2025.

A group of regionally based manufacturing firms is leading the HyNet North West project alongside Eni. The site’s aim is to absorb, transport, and store carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing factories and potential manufacturing sites for blue hydrogen, which will be used as an alternate fuel for heating, power generation, and transportation.

The project will be the first carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure in the UK.

Eni will play a pivotal role as part of the consortium by transporting and storing the CO2 in its depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs, located at around 18 miles offshore in Liverpool Bay, for which the company was awarded a carbon storage licence by the UK Oil & Gas Authority (OGA) in October 2020.

Once operational, the project will transform one of the most energy-intensive industrial districts in the UK into the world’s first low carbon industrial cluster and will help reduce CO2 emissions by up to 10 million tonnes every year by 2030, delivering 80% of the Government’s new UK-wide target of 5GW of low carbon hydrogen and playing a crucial role in the target of Net Zero emissions at 2050.

This goal is fully aligned with Eni’s own commitment to the energy transition and decarbonisation. CO2 capture, utilisation and storage, in particular for “hard to abate” industrial emissions, represents an important solution towards meeting the targets set by the Paris Agreement and the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, and is also considered crucial by the UN, as stated in its latest Unece report.