The duo are seeking to deepen their 25 year relationship around the compound of nitrogen & hydrogen.

Global demand for ammonia is estimated to grow to more than 600 million metric tonnes by 2050 due in part to its greater ease of storage and transport when compared with pure hydrogen.  Operators of industrial processes, plus power generators and shipping lines are looking with increased interest at the compound.  Its low carbon variant is predicted to meet two-thirds of ammonia demand by mid-century, implying an estimated market size for low carbon ammonia of over $200 billion then.

Johnson Matthey reckons its patented LCH^TM technology captures as much as 99% of the CO2 released in producing ammonia.  Combined with JM’s autothermal reformer, or in conjunction with JM’s gas heated reformer, the LCH method has been selected for early and prestigious blue hydrogen projects such as BP’s 700-megawatt H2Teesside hydrogen plant, and the 600-megawatt H2H Saltend project undertaken with Equinor and German company Linde.

Thyssenkrupp Uhde brings to the partnership its unique uhde^® dual pressure technology.

The firm’s heritage includes licensing, engineering or building more than 130 ammonia plants worldwide since 1928. It says it leads the market in bigger plants, those producing more than 3,000 tonnes per day.

For Johnson Matthey, its managing director of CT licensing Alberto Giovanzana said: “We know multiple routes are needed in the energy transition. Ammonia provides several options because it can be used directly in power and shipping industries, and as a hydrogen carrier to safely transport hydrogen to areas it is not easy to produce.

“Combining our expertise and over two decades worth of partnership with thyssenkrupp Uhde, we are excited to offer this technology which will allow our customers to produce ammonia with significantly lower CO2 emissions.”

Thyssenkrupp Uhde’s chief operating officer Lucretia Löscher said: “We are committed to our purpose, ‘we create a livable planet’. With this strong partnership we further broaden our portfolio of climate-friendly solutions and can help our customers even better to reach their sustainability goals.”

The post Johnson Matthey & Thyssenkrupp pledge to advance blue ammonia appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Consultant  engineers Ricardo said the Register had given outline approval for the design of its cutting-edge multi-megawatt power plant based on fuel cells.

Lloyds is the leading provider of classification and compliance services to the marine and offshore industries.

Ricardo has developed the hydrogen fuel cells in its role as lead partner on the Europe-wide Sustainable Hydrogen Powered Shipping (sHYpS) project, to which the company contributes its world-leading expertise in the hydrogen value chain.

The sHYpS trial seeks to bring to market a ~500kW net, 375kW gross power fuel cell module, referred to as the RFC500.  Included too is the design of a 40-foot containerised multi-megawatt power plant, capable of combining power from several fuel cell modules.

Lloyd’s provisional blessing for the technology signals the Register’s confidence that it has the potential to satisfy regulatory requirements, and can be used more widely to support decarbonisation across of the wider maritime industry.

Overwhelmingly diesel-burning, maritime shipping is estimated to account for XXX% of manmade climate heating.

The International Maritime Organisation calculated last year that international shipping is responsible for 2.8% of all global GHG emissions.  Though small, increasing seaborne trade around the globe is pushing that share upwards.  Without further action, CO2 emissions from marine freighting are projected to increase from about 90 per cent of 2008 emissions in 2018 to 90–130 per cent of 2008 emissions by 2050, the IMO says.

At its new, purpose-built technical centre at Shoreham on the Sussex coast, Ricardo is now assembling its marine containerisation system. The start of testing its RFC500 module forms a critical element.

Jason Oms O’Donnell, managing director of automotive & industrial for the innovator, said:

“This step represents a significant achievement in our progress to support our customers in the maritime industry with the technology to enable them to deliver on their decarbonisation strategies.

“AiP offers us an opportunity to progress with a roadmap for full regulatory compliance of our containerised solution. It gives confidence for investment and signals that there are no major obstacles to future certification or classification.”

“We are investing in our hydrogen capabilities, and in particular, we are seeing a lot of interest from customers in the maritime, aerospace, and off-highway sectors for the services that we provide. It’s an exciting time to be involved in supporting sustainable mobility, due to the significant changes that are taking place, based on regulatory and legislative requirements. We are very well placed to support our customers with their future decarbonisation journey.”

Rivals to hydrogen as a replacement for diesel in marine engines include e-methanol.  Container giant AP Moller Maersk in 2021 placed orders for up to 12 new freighter powered by the fuel, synthesised in association with biogenic carbon dioxide.

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A technique known as plasma gasification, and specifically the latter’s proprietory RadGas technology, are the parties’ intended route to riches.

RadGas is a specialised process that converts domestic waste and biomass sources into synthesised gas.

It works by linking together a fluid bed gasifier, a direct current (DC) plasma furnace, and a heat recovery boiler. The partners say RadGas offers an efficient, reliable process to produce a clean source of combustion, purged of tars and particulates.

ABSL’s small RadGas demonstrator in Swindon is a first-in-field play, converting household waste into limited quantities of grid-quality, synthesised biomethane.

Hatch’s relationship with ABSL began when it provided tips on operating the trial plasma furnace at the latter’s Swindon site.

Today’s alliance sets higher ambitions. It commits Hatch to delivering a scaled up DC furnace fit for full commercial operation at greater volume, and dedicated to RadGas.  Secondary goals include integrating RadGas into other new products.

Robert Francki, Hatch’s global managing director for energy, said: “ABSL’s RadGas technology has tremendous potential as a GHG reducing solution for turning waste into low carbon products. We are proud to contribute our well-honed furnace technology and unique ability to engineer and deliver integrated, technologically advanced, and complex facilities.”

“We see this strategic alliance as an exciting step to building a long-term partnership that will underpin delivering a robust technology today and long into the future,” said Nathan Burkey, ABSL’s chairman. “Hatch’s gasification expertise and heritage in implementing technology bring world class delivery capability to our RadGas offering.”

ABSL provides design and support to engineering contractors and third-party developers of advanced biofuel facilities.

The firm – Advanced Biofuel Solutions Ltd, in full – also operates the world’s first plant converting household waste into bio-substitute natural gas (BioSNG) through gasification. Its Swindon hub converts 8,000 tonnes of waste every year into 22GWh of gas.

Hatch’s activities centre on technology development, project execution and professional services.  The firm works at stages from project conception, through implementation and into operations support.

For nearly seven decades, it has worked worldwide in electric smelter technology. Many of its and its clients’ implementations in advanced furnace operation are unique. It deems that many of the tie-up’s RadGas requirements sit comfortably within its knowledge envelope.

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HYRO, the power pair’s £ 3 million participation vehicle, has put in an application to electrolyse hydrogen with renewably sourced electricity, and feed the gas into the manufacturers’ paper mill at Coleshill, Flint, near the River Dee.

The carbon-free hydrogen will be burned to heat a new hydrogen-ready boiler, located inside the mill.  It will replace the factory’s current boiler, fuelled by only natural gas.

Kimberly-Clark, makers in Europe of brands such as Andrex, Huggies and Kleenex, announced in April that HYRO will undertake a similar refit at its mill in Northfleet, Kent.

Via a power purchase agreement signed two years ago, Kimberly-Clark already sources clean electricity from Octopus’ Cumberhead new wind farm in the Scots Borders, which began generating this year.

Octopus and RES formed HYRO to foster on-site electrolysis of hydrogen by manufacturers relying on processes feared too difficult to strip of carbon, or who for other reasons find the leap from gas to electric heat too hard.

Today’s application related to the Flint plant follows consultations since April with local stakeholders.

Iain Buchanan, development manager for Coleshill’s combustion conversion, explained:  “Green hydrogen projects are a critical component of the broader strategy to deliver energy security and create green economic growth across Wales and the UK.

Oriol Margo, Kimberly-Clark’s European sustainability transformation boss added: “This development at our Coleshill site in Flint and our partnership with HYRO represents a huge step towards our ambition to move solely to renewable energy to manufacture Andrex, Kleenex, Huggies, WypAll and Scott in the UK by 2030.”

The post Kimberly-Clark’s Coleshill, Flint mill to run on green hydrogen, not Welsh coal or flint appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Bulk storage provider Navigator Terminals and developer Alfanar have agreed terms to progress the facility, based around the North Tees rail terminal on the port’s dockside.

It will handle up to one million tonnes per year of end-of-life waste, feedstock used at Alfanar’s plant at nearby Port Clarence.

The plant is earmarked to make over 125,000 tonnes of SAF each year, or more than 165 million litres.    Construction is scheduled to begin next year. Today’s deal pledges the two innovators to a joint front-end-engineering and design study, the first step towards construction.

Alfanar’s formulation for its Lighthouse Green Fuels has the potential, the parties claim, to reduce carbon emissions by as much as 80% against conventional jet fuel. Technologies fi gasification using the Fischer Tropsch (FT) method will create a synthesised gas from non-recyclable waste, followed by condensing into the liquid fuel.

The government’s Jet Zero strategy envisages Britain’s commercial aviation reaching Net Zero by 2050. SAF is seen as a versatile ‘drop-in fuel’, easily blended into conventional fossil-based aviation fuel, reaching existing aircraft without modifications and pumping infrastructure.

In planemakers’ developing competition between low carbon hydrogen and batteries, some experts view SAF reclaimed from end-of-life plastics as the best alternative to kerosene for long-haul flights.

Under terms of the agreement Navigator will develop the North Tees rail terminal for the storage and handling of feedstocks for Alfanar’s waste-to-SAF plant. Navigator will also construct handling terminal on its North Tees dockside.

Navigator Terminals’ existing North Tees complex stores road fuels and crude oils at the north east’s only deep-water jetty designed for petrochemicals. Direct pipelines link to the North Sea and rail distribution facilities. Finished SAF will be exported via ship from the North Tees docks or by rail or truck from Navigator’s inland North Tees terminal.

“Navigator Terminals is committed to playing a leading role in delivering Net Zero for the UK”, CEO Jason Hornsby said.

“It is exciting to bring forward plans for the UKs first Sustainable Aviation Fuel handling terminal on our North Tees dockside to rejuvenate this industrial land and push UK aviation that bit closer to Net Zero every time we fly.”

Alfanar’s chief investment officer Mishal Almutlaq responded:  “We are delighted to form a partnership with Navigator Terminals.

“We kicked off the FEED study for our Lighthouse Green Fuels project in June 2022 and we are now looking to start engineering works associated with the build out the regional infrastructure on Teesside”

SAF remains in early stages of development. Some observers believe more progress is needed if it is to achieve the energy storage densities required by conventional jets for long-haul flights.

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Developers Carlton Power & partner investors Schroders Greencoat have made the pump-priming mega-commitment, initially centred on three electrolysing sites to be developed in Barrow in Furness – pictured , Trafford Park and Langage, near Plymouth.

All three were shortlisted this spring under the first allocation round of the government’s Hydrogen Business Model / Net Zero Hydrogen Fund.

Through a joint-venture company, Carlton will build, develop and run the plants, with the first coming scheduled for production by 2025.

That date depends on confirmation of applicable government grants, expected later this year.  The duo intend seeking further sites, towards their goal of 500MW by 2030, and making a big contributiion towards Whitehall’s goal of 1GW of electrolyser capacity either in operation or construction by 2025.

The first three projects will supply green hydrogen to industrial and manufacturing companies wishing to decarbonise their operations.  All, say the duo, will have potential to supply hydrogen to local businesses, including hauliers and other transport operators.

Carlton Power’s founder Keith Clarke said: “We are delighted to be joining forces with Schroders Greencoat to develop a significant green hydrogen portfolio in the UK.  Their decision underlines the strength and quality of Carlton’s projects and our team”.

James Samworth, co-head of Schroders Greencoat’s energy transition team, said: “We are aiming for our joint venture to become one the UK’s most ambitious hydrogen investment platforms.

“Hydrogen is a huge opportunity and will play a centrally important part in the energy transition. This partnership provides the perfect platform for us to enter the space, accelerate the development of green hydrogen projects here in the UK, and provide investors with access to this growing industry.”

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The technology firm told investors this morning it has exercised its option to buy the industrial estates operator out of their shared shell joint venture, formed two years ago to ease a Powerhouse factory into production on Peel’s Protos Park near Ellesmere Port.

Protos Park is designated by its landlord as Britain’s leading industrial estate dedicated to making low carbon energy for high-volume industrial consumers.

Powerhouse develops its proprietary method, dubbed Distributed Modular Generation (DMG), to convert end-of-life plastics and rubber into the carbon-free gas.

Powerhouse has paid a nominal £1 to buy Peel NRE out of their shared special purpose vehicle company.  The purchase brings to an end the possibility of PHE taking a 50% shareholding in the SPV.  A twelve-months extension to the SPV’s loan to Powerhouse forms part of today’s deal.

Powerhouse’s acting CEO Keith Riley commented: “This is a significant and exciting development for (us) as we will now be solely responsible for the development of the project at Protos.

 “Having spent some time considering the best option for the Protos project, we have agreed with Peel that PHE will assume full control of the project and its further development.

“The next step will be to seek commercial agreements for the offtakes, whether this be electricity, heat, hydrogen or other products, prior to seeking to raise finance for the construction”.

Last year’s review called into question the manufacturer’s intention announced in 2021 to open its second plant in Glasgow’s Rothesay Dock, followed by up to 70 more.

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Verifying the sustainability of the gas’ manufacturing method, and thus boosting investors’ confidence to expand Britain’s hydrogen economy, are motives for Whitehall’s desired new classification framework.

Supported by a six-month extension of Jane Toogood’s spell as Britain’s first Hydrogen Champion, minsters hope a certification standard will help cement the UK’s place in the global race to ramp up hydrogen technology, and incentivise production, investment and use.

Producers currently have no recognised yardstick to prove the credentials of their low carbon hydrogen. A reliable rule to demonstrate emissions during its creation is needed, ministers believe, so Britain can strip planet-cooking carbon from our hydrogen sector, thereby avoiding turf wars, including between its green variety, electrolysed with renewable power, and the cheaper, more polluting blue hue, steam-cleaned from oil and gas.

That battle over gauging hydrogen’s relative pollution levels cost ex-premier Johnson a highly placed hydrogen advisor two years ago.  Chris Jackson, boss of Protium Green Solutions quit his leadership of a key Whitehall committee, only hours before Johnson launched his Hydrogen Strategy.  Jackson slammed the policy’s inclusion of blue hydrogen as an ‘expensive distraction’.

Aiming to introduce the certification scheme by 2025, Whitehall will now begin consultations with industry.

At stake is emissions avoided as hydrogen moves into new roles, including as feedstock products such as fertilisers, making low carbon steel, and replacing methane-based ‘natural gas’ in high temperature glass- or ceramics-making.

Ahead of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science this week, the UK government has extended the appointment of the country’s first-ever Hydrogen Champion, Jane Toogood, for a further six months.

Toogood’s role as Hydrogen Champion is key to bringing industry and government together to accelerate the development of the UK hydrogen economy. To date, she has met stakeholders across industry to assess opportunities and identify barriers to achieving this.

“Consumers and businesses care about investing sustainably, “said energy junior minister Graham Stuart.

“Thanks to this new scheme, investors and producers will be able to confidently identify and invest in trusted, high-quality British sources of low carbon hydrogen, both home and abroad.

The gas’ champion Jane Toogood observed: “Hydrogen is an essential piece of the puzzle to decarbonise UK industry, and improve our long-term energy security”.

“It’s great to see progress being made towards setting up a UK certification scheme – this is key to growing a low carbon hydrogen economy.

“Over the next six months, my priority will be to ensure that industry and government work together to generate investment in the hydrogen economy, kickstart hydrogen production and develop a UK hydrogen supply chain.

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A deal with Bechtel, the oil services leviathan, concluded after 2023’s books were closed, points the way.

Velocycs has hired the US firm to scope design & construction of its intended Altalto plant with British Airways on Humberside, part-funded by last year’s £ 27 million grant from the Department for Transport’s Advanced Fuel Fund.

As costings emerge this summer from Bechtel’s calculations, further external funding for Altalto will be sought.  Construction earmarked to begin in two years could see the Immingham factory delivering at scale aviation-grade fuel purged from dead plastics by 2027.

Columbus, Ohio is one north American centre for Velocys’ focus to turn wood chips into low carbon diesel and avgas.

The company last year finished building a reactor core factory there, capable of turning out up to twelve units a year. Each containing four cores, the reactors are the key to Velocys’ – or its licencees’ – conversion of low-value forestry waste into high-value fuels.

The Columbus plant is now being fitted out and staff hired, ready for catalyser production to begin in April, the company told investors this morning.

In Japan, the company continues to provide services to Toyo Engineering Corporation under a licencing deal signed in 2021.

Velocys’ proprietary manufacturing chemistry is based on the Fischer-Tropsch process. This is a catalytic chemical reaction, which turns synthesis gas – carbon monoxide and hydrogen – into liquid hydrocarbons, such as diesel or jet fuel.

Financially, the company is in line with market expectations.  At December’s year end, it had an unaudited cash balance of £13.4 million, down on 2021’s £25.5 million.  Audited figures are due in May.

“Our progress and partnerships reflect the significant achievements made in 2022 and Velocys’ position of strength in a rapidly evolving global market for advanced synthetic fuels technology”, CEO Henrik Wareborn observed.

“We have the here-and-now technology to enable SAF production close to sustainable feedstock sources to decarbonise the aviation industry at scale”.

Continuing government regulatory support, abundant feedstock, carbon capture and sequestration, supply of renewable power, and most of all, a technology that works, gave the firm a  solid platform from which to deliver, Wareborn said.

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The Sheffield-based manufacturer is finding it hard to shift from an experimentation phase to generating profits, Schulz told investors today.

He began an operational review last month, on arrival from German industrial gas giant Linde, ITM’s equity partner in hydrogen catalyser innovation.

Lower sales from contracts and higher than anticipated losses would feature in results for the full year to this coming April, Schulz warned.  Interim results will be declared on 31 January.

“This is the challenge I was expecting when I joined ITM” said Schulz. “For us to develop from an R&D and prototyping entity, to a mature delivery organisation, we require firmer foundations”.

Measures included in  the review include rationalising the firm’s products around a core more closely linked to its proprietary proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology.  Capital spending will be pulled back, as the company prepares for manufacturing at scale.

“Our twelve-month plan will make ITM a stronger, more focused and highly capable company”, Schulz sought to assure investors.  “The large-scale opportunities in the market are yet to come, and by putting these foundations in place ITM will be ready for the significant market demand ahead of us.”

Linde holds 16.2% of ITM Power, having built its stake since 2019. Their joint ventures include ITM Linde Electrolysis Ltd.

ITM has been expanding rapidly, while still burning cash. Interim results for the six months to last January showed the firm’s pipeline of electrolysers grew more than fourfold year on year, to 86 MW.

In March, Motive Fuels, ITM’s unit which builds and operates green hydrogen refuelling stations, formed a joint venture with trading behemoth Vitol, designed to scale up of production of green hydrogen sold to transport operators.

Today’s closing price of 91.3 pence on AIM implies a market cap for ITM Power of around £640 million.

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Backed already by British Airways, the Oxford-based enterprise is partnering to build a plant on Humberside, designed to convert end-of-life plastic waste into SAF, or sustainable aviation fuel.

Easing the plant’s construction is £27 million announced today from Whitehall’s £165 million Advanced Fuel Fund, awarded to Velocys’ wholly owned subsidiary Altalto Immingham.

Injected into the project’s figurative combustion chamber between now and March 2025, the award will propel front-end engineering design for the SAF project.

Necessary to securing the public cash, however, is a 50:50 burn mix with private capital, yet to be confirmed.  Letters of intent already secured by Altalto Immingham underpin existing and new partners to inject private cash, timed to be place by April 2023.

Velocys’ cash contribution into the Altalto Immingham project over the two years from April 2023 is not expected to exceed £8 million, it told investors.  Participation by new backers may further reduce that sum.

Front-end engineering design (FEED) covers validating and securing licensors‘ technology packages, drawing up the plant’s EPC contract and confirming necessary additional commercial terms.

Given a smooth ascent to full funding, construction of the plant is scheduled for 2025, and its first SAF could flow in 2027.  Once building begins, Velocys will charge its partners license fees for its technology.

Today’s funding pledge is Velocys’ biggest received to date for Altalto Immingham.  Earlier support including £1.7 million from the Green Fuels, Green Skies competition overseen by the Department for Transport and a series of grants totaling £934,000 from that fund’s predecessor.

Also announced today, a second grant from the same government fund, this time of £2.5 million, will support efforts by Velocys & partners to conduct feasibility, technical validation, site selection and pre-FEED engineering studies for a separate e-fuels project.  Instead of end-of-life plastics, carbon dioxide and hydrogen are intended feedstock to prime another UK SAF venture.

 “We are extremely pleased the UK government has awarded Velocys these important grants”. said Henrik Wareborn, CEO of the avgas chemists.

“We welcome this clear commitment to having commercial SAF plants built in the UK”, he added. “We are delighted that a number of large commercial companies have indicated their support for the project through indications of matched funding contribution and the provision of services to progress the project.”

US carrier Southwestern and IAG, owners of British Airways, Aer Lingus and Vueling, have signed outline off-taker agreements for the Immingham plant’s output.  Velocys has also embarked on technical trials with Japanese petrochemical engineers Toyo Corporation.

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Softening its reliance on the carbon-heavy gas, and switching to 100% renewable energy this decade, are ambitions behind the US-owned firm’s decision. Commercial terms of the PPA (power purchase agreement) were not disclosed.

Earlier this month, Yorkshire-based Carlton confirmed plans for production on a site in Park Road, Barrow of up to 3,500 tonnes a year of hydrogen electrolysed from water with renewable electricity.

Subject to planning consent and further financing, Carlton says the £40 million plant can be pumping the low-carbon gas to industrial consumers like K-C and haulage firms as early as 2025.

Assembled by Carlton, a regional public-private consortium embracing Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, Cadent Gas, regional DNO Electricity North-West and Barrow Borough Council is behind the infrastructure proposal.

As one of Britain’s first hubs for the synthesised gas, Barrow Green Hydrogen’s implications extend beyond Park Road, embracing customers across the North and into Scotland. Kimberly-Clark is the first of a hoped-for string of energy-intensive users – including hauliers – looking to switch to hydrogen to fuel their operations.

Kimberly-Clark and Carlton Power will work together to obtain grant funding and operational financial support for the Barrow project from D-BEIS. An application is intended before December.

Last month D-BEIS published the next steps in its Hydrogen Investment Package and the opening of Strand 3 of the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund and Hydrogen Business Model.   The model is critical to ensuring both investors’ confidence and reassurance to offtakers like Kimberly-Clark on the future price of hydrogen.

Soft, strong – and very Lanarkshire

The two companies will also work together on various economic, technical, and engineering aspects of the scheme, as well as consultations with local and national stakeholders.

Known for its moisture-retaining brands including Huggies, Scott and WypAll, Kimberly-Clark in November signed a PPA which will decarbonise approximately 80% of its UK electricity supply, by virtue of funding a new 50MW wind farm to be built by Octopus Renewables Investment Trust at Cumberhead, Lanarkshire.

The new onshore farm could be generating early next year, providing power for K-C’s three factories in Cumbria and north Wales, plus distribution centres in Chorley and Northfleet.

Welcoming today’s deal, Oriol Margo, the paper-maker’s sustainability leader for Europe said; “This project will reduce reliance on natural gas across our UK manufacturing facilities by up to 30%.

“It is an exciting opportunity and demonstrates how cooperation among a wide set of stakeholders from business and government is critical to making green hydrogen commercially viable.”

Eric Adams, Carlton Power’s hydrogen projects director, echoed his client: “We are delighted to have entered a commercial agreement with Kimberly-Clark”.

“The development of green hydrogen projects like our Barrow hub is critical”, Adams continued, “if major energy users like Kimberly-Clark are to decarbonise their operations. At a regional level, our scheme forms part of Cumbria’s Clean Energy Strategy. It’s a catalyst to establish a hydrogen economy and drive the decarbonisation of local industry”.

Pictured, a happy nose-wiping client of Kimberly-Clark.

The post Andrex maker inks paper to strengthen & lengthen Carlton’s green H2 rôle    appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Under outline terms agreed with partners Hydrogen Utopia International, the Merseyside-based firm will build and run an energy-capture plant in Konin, Wielkopolska, a province in the centre of the country.

The pair believe synergies exist between their technologies, focused to extract low carbon hydrogen from end-of-life plastics and waste material previously deemed beyond recycling.

Today’s announcement to investors provides detail of an emerging relationship which the firms believe can deliver carbon-free hydrogen at scale for industrial and trucking use across Europe.

With grants from the European Commission, the Konin plant aims to convert 1 million tonnes a year of end-of-life waste into hydrogen, providing new jobs for some of the country’s 78,000 coal miners.

Development costs for the new  joint venture will be met equally.  Under the outline terms, Powerhouse will make no entry payments to HUI, but HUI will be allowed to recover at financial close of the project, its costs to date fixed at Euros 250,000, with Euros 250,000 premium.

Both sides intend for each’s committed development costs to be capitalised at financial close and recovered through an appropriate mechanism, yet to be agreed.

PHE’s participation in the new joint venture is subject to further definitive agreement, including over the management and governance of the JVCo.

Last month the partners signed heads of terms to develop a second plant at Lanespark in County Tipperary.

Earlier this month, Powerhouse Energy announced that it was taking a 50% shareholding in Protos Plastics the £170 million dedicated EfW industrial site in Cheshire developed by its landlords Peel PRE.

Powerhouse’s forays overseas build on a strategy re-vamp launched last year by a new management team under CEO Paul Drennan-Durose, pictured.

Commenting on this morning’s clarification, Powerhouse Energy’s interim chair Keith Riley said:

 “This formalises Powerhouse Energy’s position in the Konin project and brings to an end speculation within the market on what our role will be.

“We now have the task of agreeing the detailed documents for all three projects at Protos, Lanespark and Konin, which will conclude PHE’s recently adopted policy of holding at least some level of control of the projects on which it embarks.

“I am well aware that this increases our cash flow, so an important aspect of the project controls we are implementing is careful cash management and expenditure control which we have built into the management forecasts.  HUI has made a fast start in Poland, and announced that it had signed a Letter of Intent with the City of Konin on 3 February 2021.

“Events in Eastern Europe since, however, inevitably mean that this project is likely to fall behind. In consequence, I am confident that the three developments can be phased.”

Market reaction to this morning announcement saw Powerhouse’s shares drop over four per cent by mid morning.

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For nearly twelve months, 668 homes in Winlaton, plus its nineteenth-century Anglican church and the community’s West Lane Primary school all received hydrogen in concentrations up to 20% mixed in with majority ‘natural’ gas. No changes were needed to any boilers or pipework.

Unlike ‘natural gas’, which is composed largely of methane, hydrogen produces neither carbon monoxide nor carbon dioxide when burned.

Producing no carbon at point of use, hydrogen is at the centre of the government’s Hydrogen Strategy launched last year. It carries high hopes as a key enabler of the government’s target of Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Heating homes, offices and factories is currently responsible for around a quarter of Britain’s carbon emissions.

Northern Gas estimates that, if its HyDeploy trial were to be rolled out across Britain, about 6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions could be avoided every year. That’s the equivalent of taking 2.5 million cars off the roads.

Gas appliances are designed to operate with a blend of up to 23% hydrogen. But NGN’s HyDeploy pilot needed dispensation from Ofgem, since the Gas Safety Management Regulations dating from 1996 limit hydrogen pumped through public pipes to a miniscule 0.1%.

Rules on hydrogen vary across the EU; but not for first time, Britain is less future-minded our neighbours.  In parts of the Netherlands, up to 12% hydrogen is already permitted in public pipes.

Ministers have earmarked 2023 for a decision on how far to lift Whitehall’s effective ban.

Hydrogen is a step back to the future. It was a major component in ‘town gas’, gas created from coal and the main heating source for Britain’s homes & industry before North Sea gas started to be pumped ashore in the 1960s.  Before then, hydrogen made up as much as 60% by volume of the gas warming Britons at rest and in the workplace.

Winlaton’s customers continued to use their gas supply and appliances as normal over the eleven months, without any changes needed to devices such as pumps, meters, boilers, cookers or fires.

Biba Thompson, supervising officer for a sheltered housing scheme in Winlaton, enthused:  “There was no difference to our gas when it contained the hydrogen.

“Everyone here was enthusiastic about doing their bit to reverse the effects of climate change and agreed that it was great that our small village in the North East was chosen for such a ground-breaking pilot,” the Winlaton resident went on.

For NGN, its hydrogen programme manager Fergal O’Donovan was cock-a-hoop: “We’re delighted to have successfully completed blending hydrogen into the gas supply at Winlaton”.

Thanking the villagers for their participation and support, O’Donovan added: “The recent unprecedented hot weather has brought the need to tackle climate change to the forefront of people’s mind. This project has demonstrated that hydrogen blending can play a role in decarbonising heat with no disruption”.

The HyDeploy programme began before lockdown in autumn 2019 as a trial over a closed network serving Keele University’s campus in Staffordshire.  One hundred homes and 30 commercial buildings successfully used a hydrogen blend for eighteen months.

Supplier Cadent partnered on that phase. Director of strategy Dr Angela Needle said today: “We’ve been thrilled to pass the baton from the first ever hydrogen blending trial at Keele to Northern Gas Networks who have successfully completed blending into the gas network in the village of Winlaton. “This project is the culmination of a huge amount of work putting consumers at the heart of the energy transition”.

“By blending hydrogen into the gas network, the people in Winlaton could start using a greener gas without having to make any changes to their home or the way they use their heating and cooking.

Dr Needle said Winlaton added to evidence which gas companies will put to government to enable next year’s decision on H2 share of homes’ mix.

HyDeploy continues.  Amid projects already under way, a show home at Low Thornley near Gateshead runs on 100% hydrogen fuelling its boiler, cooker, hob, fire and even a barbecue.

Earlier this year Ofgem shortlisted two UK locations for a Hydrogen Village demonstration, which will see natural gas swapped to hydrogen in around 2,000 properties.

The Hydrogen Village trial will start in 2025 and is expected to run around two years. The shortlisted locations are an area of Redcar on Teesside and Whitby, Ellesmere Port on Merseyside.

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Clusters in Britain’s “industrial heartlands” – specifically Humberside, England’s north east and north west, plus north Wales – are the locations targeted for job-creation by the fledgling technology. Implementing it across Britain could help create 50,000 skilled jobs by 2030, D-BEIS believes.

CCUS extracts and stores carbon dioxide resulting from processes such as manufacturing and refining increasingly unextractable fossil fuels.

The departing, confidence-shredding Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution established a commitment to deploy CCUS in a minimum of two industrial clusters by the mid-2020s, and four by 2030 at the latest.

The CCUS Cluster Sequencing Process is Whitehall’s route to meeting this commitment. Track 1 Clusters will be in place by the mid-2020s.  They include the HyNet cluster announced in November 2021 in North West England and North Wales, and the East Coast Cluster on Teesside and Humberside.

These, plus a further two by 2030, will be considered for support under the government’s CCUS Programme. It includes the £1bn CCS Infrastructure Fund (CIF).

One asset, the North Sea, underlines Britain’s potential unrivalled in Europe for CCUS.

Feathering developers’ nests – alternatively, targeting small sums of commonly held wealth towards opportunities assessed to have favourable chances of securing public good –  can be controversial in political economy.

The government is determined to see the UK become a world-leader in CCUS technology, helping to attract new private capital into the UK to develop new green technologies and drive forward the UK’s Green Industrial Revolution.

The shortlisted projects will now also be considered for government funding support to join one of these clusters, to use carbon capture technology to help decarbonise their businesses.

Read the full list of potential winners here.

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