H2 Green to develop hydrogen and ammonia hub in Shoreham, UK, to decarbonize port

H2 Green is to develop a renewable energy hub at the port of Shoreham on the south coast of the UK, including hydrogen and ammonia production and new onshore wind and solar generation to decarbonize port operations, parent company Getech said in a statement Nov. 15.

The project will initially provide renewable hydrogen and electricity to the port's 39 heavy forklift trucks and 12 heavy trucks, with potential to expand supplies beyond the port.

In a second phase, the project could decarbonize the 800 trucks a day that pass through the port, and could fuel port and coastal marine craft.

H2 Green plans to develop an ammonia import facility in a third phase.

"By bringing together the building blocks of green hydrogen production, renewable power investment, ammonia import, and mobilizing a wide range of stakeholders, H2 Green will provide the most flexible, reliable, and cost-effective green energy solution for the Port, its customers and the wider region," Getech CEO Jonathan Copus said in the statement.

The company expects hydrogen production to expand to around 8 mt/day over a period of five to seven years, with first production expected in late 2023 or early 2024, H2 Green told S&P Global Platts in an email Nov. 15.

Hydrogen will be produced by a 20-MW electrolyzer once at full scale, powered by renewable energy.

The hydrogen production facility will be optimized with new solar and onshore wind facilities.

Production could further expand to over 15 mt/day, once all heavy vehicles in the port are converted to run on hydrogen, H2 Green said.

A final investment decision is expected in the second half of 2022.

H2 Green has a two-year exclusive agreement with the port to develop the hub. The parties will now carry out detailed planning and scheduling for each element of the proposed facility. Shoreham Port Authority has committed to convert all suitable vehicles to run on hydrogen or electricity, Getech said.

H2 Green said the project would remove around 45,000 mt/year of CO2 emissions from the port's fleet of trucks, and could catalyze the decarbonization of the wider region.

The company sees the potential demand for renewable hydrogen, power and by-products such as oxygen and heat from nearby industries, including gas-fired power generation, timber and steel handling, and water treatment projects.

Scalable model

Getech said the model of integrating a decarbonized port and industrial cluster could be scaled and replicated across the country and internationally.

H2 Green plans to develop a network of localized hydrogen supply, storage and distribution hubs in the UK, the first of its kind in the country.

The company has an exclusive option to redevelop redundant gas infrastructure assets owned by SGN Commercial Services in Scotland and southern England for hydrogen distribution around the UK, H2 Green managing director Luke Johnson told Platts in an interview in May.

Getech is a geoscience and geospatial technology company focused on energy transition projects, and bought H2 Green in March.

Calculated costs for green hydrogen production are currently above those for blue hydrogen produced from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage. But costs are expected to fall dramatically this decade.

Platts assessed the cost of producing hydrogen via alkaline electrolysis in the UK (including capex) at GBP10.99/kg ($14.75/kg) Nov. 12, based on month-ahead power prices. PEM electrolysis production was assessed at GBP13.09/kg, while blue hydrogen production by autothermal reforming was less than half the price GBP4.26/kg (including capex, CCS and carbon).