CATCH hosted the first Humber Industrial Decarbonisation Network of the year on Wednesday 27 January via TEAMs.  With 80 delegates drawn from CATCH membership and wider stakeholders from public, private and academic communities the meeting welcomed a number of new members to the group.

In the first presentation Dr Geraint Evans, from BeaconTech consultancy, gave an informative journey through the steps required to meet net zero for an industrial cluster.  The various technologies available to bring the Humber industrial cluster to a net zero or even net negative position were explored.

Geraint highlighted that the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan will have 2 years to demonstrate routes to net zero for different combinations of decarbonisation technologies and will be able to demonstrate the impact of new technologies on the cost and pace of decarbonisation.

Barriers to deployment cover a wide range from technical, social, economic and policy.  It could be argued that technical barriers are easiest to solve.  The way Covid has impacted our lives may see behaviours in the population shift to embracing lower carbon choices and wider social acceptance of the need to change.

Helen Sanders, Head of Policy and Stakeholder Engagement at SSE Thermal, gave delegates a chance to understand how Keadby Clean Power Hub is moving forward in their ambitions to establish lower carbon energy production in the region.  Helen outlined their Keadby 2 plans and future plans for Keadby 3 which could become the first power station equipped with carbon capture technology.

Helen highlighted a recent socio-economic report which can be found here: https://www.ssethermal.com/media/ls5odlcw/powering-progress-keadby-2-socio-economic-impact-report.pdf

SSE Thermal are partners in both the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan and Zero Carbon Humber – a significant deployment project supporting an onshore CCS system and hydrogen production for the Humber.

Katie Hedges, Head of Membership & Low Carbon Strategy at CATCH, detailed the recent success of the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan which has secured £1.7million from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to develop a plan for net zero by 2040.  The plan supports a range of deployment project bids that could see first end to end CO2 storage achieved by 2025-2027.

The next Humber Industrial Decarbonisation Network meets on 28 April and we are excited to announce the first Humber Hydrogen Network will be held on 10 March.

Please contact katie.hedges@catchuk.org or lisa.buck@catchuk.org