ScottishPower points to future shipping demand in plans to develop Felixstowe green hydrogen hub

British energy firm ScottishPower aims to produce 40 mt/day of green hydrogen by the UK’s Port of Felixstowe.

PHOTO: Aerial view of the UK's Port of Felixstowe. ScottishPower

The plant will have a 100 MW-capacity electrolyser to split water into oxygen and green hydrogen by using renewable electricity generated from offshore windfarms. ScottishPower will target demand from industry, road and rail transport and shipping.

Apart from green hydrogen, the plant will be built with capacity to also produce green ammonia and e-methanol in the future, ScottishPower said.

ScottishPower has partnered with Hutchison Ports to develop, build and operate the green hydrogen plant Felixstowe. The duo expects green hydrogen demand to pick up from 2025 onwards.

“It’s perfectly located not far from our existing and future offshore windfarms in the East Anglia region and demonstrates how renewable electricity and green hydrogen can now start to help to decarbonise road, rail, shipping and industry,” ScottishPower’s hydrogen director Barry Carruthers.

In a recent study, shipping classification society DNV forecasted that hydrogen will make up only 5% of the overall global energy mix by 2050, while a greater 11% of Europe’s energy mix.

DNV says hydrogen uptake needs to be triple that forecast, at 15%, by 2050 to reach the Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming within 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.