In the late 18th century, the market town of Manchester in North West England was transformed into an industrial powerhouse. Cotton and textile factories were built across the landscape, powered by the large numbers of people migrating there from across the land, including my ancestors, all coming to work in what afterwards became known as Cottonpolis—the world’s first industrial city.
The Industrial Revolution changed the face of North West England and went on to change the world. Two hundred years later, the North West of England is leading the next industrial revolution, and it will have similar implications for the world. This revolution is the transition of heavy industry away from fossil fuels to clean energy like hydrogen.
This transition is important. Fifteen thousand industrial businesses are based in the area, directly employing 350,000 people, with many times that indirectly employed in businesses supporting the sector.
These are good jobs, with the average wage worth 130% of the average wage in the UK. The industry in the region has national importance too, contributing more than £18bn in economic value each year. The industry is, however, a major source of carbonaround 13% of total UK carbon emissions come from the sector nationwide. While those emissions have fallen by 55% since 1990, this has largely been achieved by process efficiency gains and some offshoring. If we are to reach net zero by 2050 while protecting jobs and economic value in the region, we will need to move beyond process efficiency to fuel switching. Away from natural gas, coal, and oil to clean alternatives such as electricity and hydrogen.
HyNet is a partnership of several organisations developing hydrogen infrastructure in the region and is a microcosm of that future economy.
This partnership provides the infrastructure to produce, transport and store low-carbon hydrogen across the North West and North Wales.
To preserve the North West’s role as an industrial powerhouse whilst reducing the sector’s emissions and delivering on the UK’s net zero targets, HyNet is pivotal
HyNet involves upgrading existing infrastructure and developing new infrastructure, including underground pipelines, hydrogen production plants and storage facilities. It is also building the infrastructure to capture, transport, and lock away carbon dioxide emissions.
HyNet has been selected by the Government as one of the UK’s first industrial decarbonisation clusters and expects to be the first to physically sequester the CO2 from the region’s industrial processes. Eni is the counterparty to the Government in this process, providing CO2 storage off the North coast of Wales with pipeline assets that anchor the scheme.
The first CO2 capture plants selected include Hanson’s cement plant at Padeswood in North Wales, as well a smaller facility by Tarmac; two large energy from waste facilities owned by Viridor and Encyclis and Vertex’s largescale CCUS-enabled low carbon hydrogen production facility. This large plant will initially produce 3TWh/year but with plans for expansion up to 30TWh, capable of replacing nearly 50% of the region’s natural gas demand.
The hydrogen technology is world-leading, with capture rates of 97% and efficiency ratings of over 85%. Early construction of this facility will unlock hydrogen distribution and storage infrastructure, enabling the build-out of wider electrolytic hydrogen projects such as those being developed by Grenian Hydrogen.
Inovyn will establish underground salt cavern storage facilities capable of holding 1300GWh of hydrogen– equivalent to the energy stored if we converted all UK passenger cars to battery-electric vehicles. And we will build over 100km of new hydrogen pipelines to distribute the clean hydrogen to where it is needed.
Kelloggs, Heineken, Heinz, PepsiCo plan to use the hydrogen to produce low-carbon food and drink products; Essity will manufacture low-carbon personal care products; Novelis intends to use hydrogen to reduce the carbon intensity of their aluminium recycling process; and Unilever has demonstrated the use of hydrogen to manufacture lowcarbon household products–to name a few. There are wider system benefits too, with ESB Carrington planning to use the hydrogen to provide power market flexibility services.
The final picture is comprehensive. HyNet will ultimately play a key role in decarbonising industry, homes and businesses–as well as providing low-carbon fuel for heavy transport in the region by 2030.
And this model is entirely replicable, something we are already starting to demonstrate in the other industrial clusters around our region, for example, with projects in the East and South East of England.
However, we do not need to wait until 2030 to see the benefits of HyNet. They are already being delivered. Pilkington operates a glass factory in the North West, where raw ingredients are heated to around 1,600 degrees centigrade. In a world-first trial, Pilkington converted this furnace to run on hydrogen to demonstrate it could run safely at full production without impacting product quality.
This successful trial was a key step in Pilkington’s plans to decarbonise and could see a transition to using hydrogen to power all production at the site.
Such a switch would mean that the float glass furnace– which accounts for most of the company’s overall carbon emissions–would be able to run with hugely lower emissions.
The dual challenge I presented at the start–to preserve the North West’s role as an industrial powerhouse whilst reducing the sector’s emissions and delivering on the UK’s net zero targets-HyNet is pivotal in meeting it. And when we deliver this project, the benefits are going to be significant.
We’ll save 10m tonnes of carbon each year by 2030, equivalent to taking 4m cars off the road. We will deliver nearly 50% of the UK’s clean hydrogen production target in just one project, 80% of the UK’s clean power target for transport, industry and heat by the same point, and help secure the region’s economic future, creating £17bn of value locally and £31bn nationally, including 6,000 local jobs and up to 75,000 jobs in the wider economy.
