Scottish hydrogen storage facility gets British government’s backing
November 26, 2021The new plant will produce green H2, which will play a role in Glasgow’s progress to 2030 net zero.
Great Britain will be investing £9.4 million to build a new hydrogen storage production facility, which will be located just south of Glasgow at Whitelee Windfarm.
That site is currently the home of the biggest onshore windfarm in the United Kingdom.
The current site in East Renfrewshire is the home of the largest onshore windfarm in the country. The government funding will be used for the creation of the largest electrolyzer in the country. It will split water into oxygen and H2. The facility will also feature hydrogen storage.
The electrical energy that the existing wind farm generates will be used for powering the electrolyzer, which will release the H2 that will be stored onsite in the hydrogen storage facility. Among the anticipated uses for the energy made available through the facility’s operations is local transport.
The hydrogen storage production facility will produce enough to power 225 buses traveling 100 miles per day.
The estimates about the site indicate that its clean zero-carbon fuel production will be enough to keep 225 buses running for almost 100 miles every day. This use for H2 is a growing trend among municipalities that are working to transition their transportation systems away from fossil fuel reliance as a part of decarbonization strategies.
The new site will “make the UK a world-leading hydrogen economy, bringing green jobs to Glasgow, while also helping to decarbonise local transport,” said UK energy and climate change minister Greg Hands. “You’ve lost two-thirds of the energy in making the hydrogen and then using it.”
That said, there has been some discussion in opposition of the use of H2 for powering public transport. Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland said that using the windfarm-generated electricity as a renewable source of zero-emission power is a cheaper and more sensible use than it would be to power H2 creation.
What is green hydrogen? Learn the answer!
The Whitelee facility will be producing green H2 and providing hydrogen storage. It will use renewable power produced by both wind farms and solar panels.
With over 15 years of reporting hydrogen news, we are your premier source for the latest updates and insights in hydrogen and renewable energy.
A great move by Glasgow City Council, but it would be interesting to know how this facility will store hydrogen. Hydrogen storage can be expensive to do, and a more efficient way to store the green electricity would be with a battery farm rather than converting it into hydrogen and storing the gas. The electrolysers would then be powered to match the demand of local transport.
Does this plan include hydrogen filling stations for other transport that is operating in the city such as heavy goods vehicles that are not practical to power by batteries, as well as hydrogen powered FCEVs that need the extra mileage or quick refueling times?
This article headlines ” … a new hydrogen storage production facility …” without mentioning storage. What kind of storage ? Tanks or salt caverns, as in Tees County, UK ? What storage capacity, in kg or MT GH2 ? At what pressure ? At what CAPEX per kWk, kg, or MT ? Is the storage on-site, or accessed by GH2 pipeline ?
Has anybody in the UK thought about using NH3 instead of H2? NH3 which is available in Canada and much more Greener and Economical to use in Scotland