Page 18 - Gi flipbook March 2018

It’s not so grim up North

continue to produce gas until the
early 2020s, which is consistent with FIGURE 1: Project Design Concept
the development timeframe for the
proposed Liverpool-Manchester
Cluster, and then will need to be Salt cavern storage
decommissioned or repurposed. It is CO2 transport avoided, largely via Hydrogen blend to
estimated that the potential and storage in demand balancing distribution network
availability of storage in Liverpool Bay Hamilton from converted (at level defined by
is plentiful. The Hamilton field has a industrial plant HyDeploy)
CO2 storage capacity of 130 million
tonnes and additional CO2 storage
capacity of up to one billion tonnes at High level of H to
2
the Morecambe Bay complex is Bulk hydrogen production from tranche of selected
available, should it be required. There natural gas. Other hydrogen industrials providing
is already an existing pipeline from production encouraged steady baseload
Point of Ayr Gas Terminal to the (eg. bio-hydrogen from waste) demand
Liverpool Bay fields, which could be
repurposed for reverse flow of CO2
once production of natural gas ceases.
This option would also allow both the cost first step towards the ultimate more importantly in the shorter-term,
government and the field operators, goal of full conversion of the gas the development of hydrogen bus and
ENI, to avoid the extensive network to hydrogen. distribution fleets, contributing to
decommissioning costs associated reductions in road traffic pollution.
with ceasing gas and oil production. INDUSTRIAL GROWTH Alstom has recently announced it
The existing infrastructure means The creation of new critical regional hopes to run hydrogen-powered trains
that unit CO2 transport and storage infrastructure could attract inward in the Liverpool-Manchester Cluster
costs for the project could be investment to the area as industry area, which would be serviced from its
approximately half of those at other may be attracted by the possibility of new rail modernisation and
potential UK locations for CCS. The long-term supplies of low carbon fuel. technology centre in Widnes.
current modelling for the Liverpool- As well as a range of employment
Manchester Cluster suggests that the opportunities, hydrogen projects TIMELINE AND NEXT STEPS
capital expenditure for the project is across the North could make the A second stage of project design is
around £0.6 billion with an estimated region a leader in hydrogen and CCS currently in progress. The outputs
£57 million per annum once technologies, skills and expertise from this stage of analysis are
operational. This is significantly lower which could be exported to other expected to be available in spring
than the costs that would be regions of the UK and beyond. 2018. The work includes the initial
associated with 100 per cent hydrogen The infrastructure could also design of trials to demonstrate the
conversion, largely due to the lack of facilitate wider opportunities, in use of a hydrogen blend in the
need for either replacement of particular decarbonisation of the existing distribution network, which
household and commercial boilers, or transport sector, with the use of will be based on a current trial in a
for underground storage of hydrogen hydrogen as a vehicle fuel. Spurs from private network at Keele University,
in salt caverns. It therefore the main pipeline would enable not known as the HyDeploy project. The
represents a meaningful, but low- only retail filling stations for cars, but work also includes the design of
trials at industrial sites to potentially
demonstrate the use of hydrogen in
The infrastructure could also facilitate boilers, kilns and furnaces. Cadent is
also currently working with the
wider opportunities, in particular largest industrial gas users in the
decarbonisation of the transport region, and wider stakeholders,
towards a collective vision and
sector, with the use of hydrogen as funding model for the project. The
goal is for the demonstration
a vehicle fuel. Spurs from the main projects to start in 2019, which
pipeline would enable not only retail would allow a four-year construction
period to begin in 2022, with the
filling stations for cars, but more potential for further extensions of
the project into the 2030s.
importantly in the shorter-term, the Cadent believes that the North of
development of hydrogen bus and England, and the North West in
particular, can lead the UK towards a
distribution fleets, contributing to hydrogen future that is the lowest
reductions in road traffic pollution cost, most practical form of
decarbonisation for consumers. ■

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