A new bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot facility will be installed within Drax’s CCUS Incubation Area in the autumn.

The pilot facility will enable Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to demonstrate its BECCS technology can be used at scale and help deliver against the UK’s zero carbon targets.

The new MHI BECCS pilot will enhance Drax’s technical understanding for delivering negative emissions at the UK’s largest renewable power generator and help the energy company to drive forward its world-leading ambition to be carbon negative by 2030.

Drax Group and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, Ltd., part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group (MHI), have agreed a new bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot project at Drax Power Station which will get underway this autumn.

The pilot will test MHI’s carbon capture technology – marking another step on Drax’s journey towards achieving its world-leading ambition to be a carbon negative company by 2030.

MHI’s 12-month pilot will capture around 300kg of CO2 a day for the purpose of confirming its technology’s suitability for use with biomass flue gases at Drax.

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said  “Our plans to develop ground-breaking BECCS at the power station in North Yorkshire will help to boost the UK’s economy following the Covid crisis and support the development of a zero carbon industrial cluster in the Humber region – delivering clean growth and protecting thousands of jobs.

“We’re very pleased to be working with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on this exciting pilot which will further our understanding of the potential for deploying BECCS at scale at Drax – taking us closer to achieving our world-leading ambition to be a carbon negative company by 2030.”

Two of MHI’s proprietary solvents will be tested, one of which — KS-1TM Solvent — is already being used at 13 commercial plants delivered by MHI, including Petra Nova in Texas, USA, the world’s largest post combustion carbon capture facility, capturing 1.4 million tonnes of CO2 a year. The other  is the newly developed KS-21TM Solvent,  designed to achieve significant performance improvements and cost savings.

Kenji Terasawa, President & CEO, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, said:

“We are very proud to be a part of the BECCS pilot project with Drax. We firmly believe that our carbon capture technology would be able to contribute to the UK’s zero carbon targets in a material way.”

Implementing BECCS at Drax could deliver 16 million tonnes of negative emissions a year – a third of the negative emissions the UK needs from BECCS to reach its zero carbon targets by 2050 and anchor a zero carbon industrial cluster in the Humber region, delivering clean growth whilst protecting 55,000 jobs.

Velocys plc the sustainable fuels technology company, has announced that a formal notice of the decision to grant planning permission for the Altalto Immingham plant has now been issued by North East Lincolnshire Council.

Velocys is an international UK-based sustainable fuels technology company. Velocys designed, developed and now licenses proprietary Fischer-Tropsch technology for the generation of clean, low carbon, synthetic drop-in aviation and road transport fuel from municipal solid waste and waste woody biomass.

Velocys is currently developing two reference projects: one in Natchez, Mississippi, USA (incorporating Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage) and one in Immingham, UK, to produce fuels that significantly reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and key exhaust pollutants for aviation and road transport. Originally a spin-out from Oxford University, in 2008 the company acquired a US company based on complementary technology developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Velocys is headquartered in Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Eleven leading energy and industrial companies have signed a formal agreement to support a joint plan to develop a decarbonised industrial cluster in the Humber. Their consortium’s plan, to transform the Humber region into the world’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040, has also secured an initial award from the UK’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

The companies involved include some of the largest businesses in the Humber region: Associated British Ports; Centrica Storage Ltd; Drax Group; Equinor; National Grid Ventures; Phillips 66 Ltd; px Group; SSE Thermal; Saltend Cogeneration Company Limited; VPI-Immingham LLP; and Uniper.

The plan has the potential to contribute to the future prosperity of the UK’s largest industrial hub, which contributes £18bn towards UK Gross Value Added (GVA), and to safeguard 55,000 jobs in manufacturing across the region.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) announced on 16 April that the Humber project had been successful in its application for Phase One funding via the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

The companies’ proposals for the Humber include identifying anchor projects from across the region that can kick-start the decarbonisation of the Humber industrial region, with the potential to capture and store around 10% of UK carbon dioxide emissions per year by 2040. The plan is a coordinated approach to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by maturing options to deploy capture and storage of emissions (CCS), negative emissions (through bioenergy with CCS), fuel switching to low carbon hydrogen (produced from natural gas using CCS) and looking into future options of hydrogen through electrolysis.

Chair of the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership, Lord Haskins, said: “We are pleased to welcome this agreement and the commitment companies across the Humber are making to working towards a net-zero carbon economy. This collaborative effort is key to the region – currently the UK’s highest emitting industrial cluster – reducing its carbon output and creating more new economic opportunities through clean growth.”

Speaking on behalf of the consortium, Al Cook, Executive Vice President and UK Country Manager at Equinor, the company leading the bid, said: “We are delighted to be working with such a broad group of skilled and experienced partners on a plan that will bring huge benefits for the economy of the Humber and the environment. We believe CCS and hydrogen must play a significant role in decarbonising energy systems in the UK and globally, so we are pleased that the UK Government and UKRI have recognised the ambition and potential of these proposals.

“At such a difficult time, we hope this can represent some good news for UK industry, jobs, the environment and the economy. We and our partners are now focused on developing our plans further and working closely with key regional stakeholders such as the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership and CATCH UK.”

CATCH is seeking consultancy support to help us deliver our Phase 1 ISCF decarbonisation of industrial clusters: roadmaps project in partnership with the Humber LEP. The consultant will take us from our conceptual position through to a firmly defined proposal for the Phase 2 ISCF roadmap project (the delivery of the roadmap itself). The consultant will deliver their findings in a final report from which our Phase 2 application to deliver the roadmap will be assembled.

The objectives for this project will be to agree with CATCH and partners on the best path forward to delivering the Phase 2 roadmap, to provide a detailed methodology, and to define the data and datasets that will be needed in Phase 2.  A separate project being commissioned by the Humber LEP will identify the sources and availabilities of these data.

Request Issue Date – 17 January 2020

Request for Quotation Submission Date – 3 February 12:00 hours

To receive a copy of the full Request for Quotation document please email katie.hedges@catchuk.org

We welcome collaborative approaches in your response and any replies we issue to questions will be posted back to all interested parties.

Four key reports have been published by Element Energy that outline the opportunity for hydrogen in the UK net-zero transition, including technical and economic perspectives.

The Hy-Impact series of studies explores the technical and economic impacts of deploying hydrogen and CCS technologies in the UK.  Blue hydrogen is capable of decarbonising industry, heat, transport and power.

The studies assess aspects from job creation to emissions reduction, and hydrogen production to its end-use, including complementing renewables in the power sector.  The studies were carried out for Equinor, a long-term energy investor in the UK in a broad range of areas and also the country’s largest supplier of natural gas.

The studies aimed to answer a number of remaining questions around hydrogen deployment in the UK and concluded that:

• Hydrogen and CCS deployment could enable over 200,000 jobs and could add £18 billion to the UK economy in 2050
• There is sufficient bioenergy to enable large-scale net-negative hydrogen production in the UK, through blending of biomethane into the reformer feedstock
• Hydrogen and CCS power technologies can cost-effectively replace planned nuclear and unabated gas power plants, while reducing electricity grid carbon intensity by 24%
• The Yorkshire and Humber region could represent an opportunity for development of an early hydrogen economy.

Plans are already developing in the UK to deploy hydrogen and CCS at scale.

Proposals for a new Energy Park in North East Lincolnshire were on display this week for local residents to drop in and speak to representatives about the project.

Engie’s senior business development manager for renewables, Matthew Hayes, said: “We are looking at a phased development, with 29.9MW solar and 20MW for battery storage.  We have been looking at this site for a couple of years, and there are opportunities to do more”

David Talbot, CEO at CATCH said “The energy park development proposed on land adjacent to the SHIIP Stallingborough Interchange investment site, a stone’s throw from Catch, is an excellent project which directly benefits industry and jobs in the region.  There is an urgent need for new industrial development land that offers investors potential low and net zero carbon opportunities and Engie is leading this approach in a region primed and ready to take on the Net Zero challenge.”

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Read the full report here: Humber Clean Growth White Paper.

The ambitious plan aims to put the Energy Estuary at the forefront of what LEP Chair Lord Haskins called “the biggest global question today”: addressing climate change while maintaining economic growth.

The Humber Clean Growth Local White Paper confirms the region’s ambition to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040, which had been proposed in the consultation the LEP launched at its annual business summit in June.  Currently the Humber has the highest carbon emissions of any UK industrial cluster.

To achieve this, commitments include:

• The Humber LEP and industry body CATCH will lead the development of a roadmap for reducing industrial emissions, with an initial funding bid to be submitted to Government next month.
• A group of leading academic and business experts will be recruited to advise on the region’s plans, with a “Net Zero Commission” due to get under way early next year.
• SMEs will be offered additional decarbonisation and energy efficiency support through the LEP’s Business Growth Hub, subject to final funding approval.
• The LEP will work with industry, transport firms and other potential users to develop the demand for hydrogen fuel – with a view to also attracting clean production to the region, adding to the area’s existing chemicals cluster.
• The Humber LEP will work with neighbouring LEPs in North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to support the area’s large food and agriculture sector to decarbonise.
• The LEP will continue existing work with the offshore wind industry to develop the local supply chain, and with businesses seeking to develop carbon capture and storage in the region.

With the general election campaign getting under way, the White Paper also calls for support from the next government, including:

• Working with the area to explore the financing models and business and community incentives required to support decarbonisation.
• Supporting international marketing of the Humber’s proposition for clean growth in order to attract more new investment to the area.
• Backing the University of Hull-led bid to the Strength in Places Fund as a first step towards increasing local energy innovation capacity.

Further actions will be set out in the Humber Local Industrial Strategy, alongside commitments on key sectors including engineering and assembly, logistics and tech, as well as cross-cutting issues like infrastructure and skills.  Accelerated by ministers in the summer, the LEP has been in advanced discussions with Government and local partners over recent months and a final draft has been approved by the LEP Board – but publication will now have to wait until after the election.

Lord Haskins, Chair of the Humber LEP, said: “The biggest global question today is how to address climate change while maintaining economic growth.  The Humber is essential to the UK’s transition to a net zero carbon economy.

“Our region is already at the forefront of delivering clean electricity, with the largest offshore wind farm in the world under construction, and in future should be a leader in developing and deploying decarbonisation solutions across industry, transport and homes.  By being proactive at a local level we have a chance to protect what we already have, and ensure our businesses and residents can benefit from this transition.

“What has come across clearly from the businesses, local authorities and other organisations involved in this work is the level of ambition from the Humber and the desire to get on with this quickly.  There are a lot of exciting projects being developed which would accelerate the progress our region is already making.

“This White Paper and our Local Industrial Strategy give the next Government, whatever the colour, a compelling proposition from the Humber which I hope ministers will get behind straight away after the election.”

As part of putting the White Paper together, the Humber LEP has engaged with businesses across the area, from major employers to SMEs, in a number of different sectors, as well as local authorities and other local institutions.

Energy intensive industries make up almost a quarter of the value of the Humber economy, and account for one in ten jobs in the region. Protecting their long-term competitiveness is a key ambition in the White Paper, and will be supported by the new roadmap for reducing emissions to be developed by the LEP and CATCH.

David Talbot, CEO of CATCH, said: “The industrial emitters across the Humber region are primed and ready to collaborate with key stakeholders to address technology, infrastructure and policy gaps and overcome barriers to review and prioritise different decarbonisation models and 2040 net-zero options for the Humber industrial cluster.  CATCH and the Humber LEP will work together to secure funding to develop a roadmap for decarbonising the Humber industrial cluster.”

Humber local authorities have been closely involved in developing the Local Industrial Strategy.

Councillor Stephen Brady, Leader of Hull City Council, said: “We are proud to support the Humber Local Industrial Strategy.

“This region faces a growing threat from climate change, with the second-highest threat of flood risk in the country. We also have a large cluster of energy-intensive industries that are vital to the UK economy, which we are working with to transition to a low-carbon future.

“In Hull, we have identified climate change as a key challenge and have set ambitious targets through the declaration of a climate emergency in March this year and a commitment to become carbon-neutral by 2030.

“The Living with Water Partnership focused around flooding and water shortage and the growth of offshore wind power and Siemens Gamesa blade factory show we are already meeting the challenge to create a low-carbon future in the city.

“Decarbonisation provides a big economic opportunity for the region as lower-carbon sectors are growing at a faster rate than other areas. This is good news for the Humber as the UK’s Energy Estuary and a key piece of the UK’s world-leading offshore wind sector.”

Cllr Philip Jackson, leader of North East Lincolnshire Council, said: “Over the last few years, we’ve been working hard with our neighbouring authorities to build on our collective growing reputation, leading the way in the clean energy revolution and powering the UK. Our offshore wind operations and maintenance base in Grimsby and the training facilities in our area are second to none.

“This Local Industrial Strategy will help us continue and build on that Humber-wide partnership to attract investment to our shores and support our local Town Deal – a unique collaboration, developed in North East Lincolnshire, but the effects of which will be felt throughout the Humber.”

What is the Industrial decarbonisation challenge?