#netzero
Introduction
The Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC) is funded by UK government through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. One aim is to enable the deployment of low-carbon technology, at scale, by the mid-2020’s [1]. This challenge supports the Industrial Clusters Mission which seeks to establish one net-zero industrial cluster by 2040 and at-least one low-carbon cluster by 2030 [2]. This latest SCI Energy Group blog provides an overview of Phase 1 winners from this challenge and briefly highlights several on-going initiatives across some of the UK’s industrial clusters.
Phase 1 Winners
In April 2020, the winners for the first phase of two IDC competitions were announced. These were the ‘Deployment Competition’ and the ‘Roadmap Competition’; see Figure 1 [3].
Figure1 - Winners of Phase 1 Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge Competitions. For further information, click here
Teesside
Net-Zero Teesside is a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project. One aim is to decarbonise numerous carbon-intensive businesses by as early as 2030. Every year, up to 6 million tonnes of CO2emissions are expected to be captured. Thiswill be stored in the southern North Sea which has more than 1,000Mt of storage capacity. The project could create 5,500 jobs during construction and could provide up to £450m in annual gross benefit for the Teesside region during the construction phase [4].
For further information on this project, click here.
Figure2 – Industrial Skyscape of Teesside Chemical Plants
The Humber
In 2019, Drax Group, Equinor and National Grid signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which committed them to work together to explore the opportunities for a zero-carbon cluster in the Humber. As part of this initiative, carbon capture technology is under development at the Drax Power Station’s bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot. This could be scaled up to create the world’s first carbon negative power-station. This initiative also envisages a hydrogen demonstrator project, at the Drax site, which could be running by the mid-2020s. An outline of the project timeline is shown in Figure 3 [5].
For further information on this project, click here.
Figure3 - Overview of Timeline for Net-Zero Humber Project
North West
The HyNet project envisions hydrogen production and CCS technologies. In this project, CO2will be captured from a hydrogen production plant as well as additional industrial emitters in the region. This will be transported, via pipeline, to the Liverpool Bay gas fields for long-term storage [6]. In the short term, a hydrogen production plant has been proposed to be built on Essar’s Stanlow refinery. The Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) is expected to be completed by March 2021 and the plant could be operational by mid-2024. The CCS infrastructure is expected to follow a similar timeframe [7].
For further information on the status of this project, click here.
Scotland
Project Acorn has successfully obtained the first UK CO2appraisal and storage licence from the Oil and Gas Authority. Like others, this project enlists CCS and hydrogen production. A repurposed pipeline will be utilised to transport industrial CO2emissions from the Grangemouth industrial cluster to St. Fergus for offshore storage, at rates of 2 million tonnes per year. Furthermore, the hydrogen production plant, to be located at St. Fergus, is expected to blend up to 2% volume hydrogen into the National Transmission System [8]. A final investment decision (FID) for this project is expected in 2021. It has the potential to be operating by 2024 [9].
For further information on this project, click here.
Figure4 - Emissions from Petrochemical Plant at Grangemouth
SCI Energy Group October Conference
The chemistry of carbon dioxide and its role in decarbonisation is a key topic of interest for SCI Energy Group. In October, we will be running a conference concerned with this topic. Further details can be found here.
Reace Edwards is a member of SCI’s Energy group and a PhD Chemical Engineering student at the University of Chester. Read more about her involvement with SCI here or watch her TEDx Talk here.
Sources:
[1]https://www.ukri.org/innovation/industrial-strategy-challenge-fund/industrial-decarbonisation/
[4]https://www.netzeroteesside.com/project/
[5]https://www.zerocarbonhumber.co.uk/
[6]https://hynet.co.uk/app/uploads/2018/05/14368_CADENT_PROJECT_REPORT_AMENDED_v22105.pdf
