Air Products, VPI team up at Humber hydrogen hub

Air Products, the world's biggest hydrogen producer, has teamed up with power generator VPI, to develop a 800-MW blue hydrogen plant in the UK's Humber region, they said on July 6.

Using natural gas produced in the North Sea as its feedstock, the Humber Hydrogen Hub, or H3 project, will provide hydrogen mainly to decarbonise the VPI's gas-fired power plant in Immingham. Air Products and VPI have signed a joint development agreement on the project.

The hydrogen will be used at an existing third turbine power train at the Immingham site, but will also be made available to other industrial uses. The other two turbine trains will have carbon capture equipment installed as part of the Humber Zero initiative. All told, these efforts are expected to reduce emissions from the station by two thirds.

The H3 project has applied for Strand 1 funding from the UK's Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, which is administered by UK Research and Innovation. The UK government wants to produce as much as 10 GW of low-carbon hydrogen – a mix of blue and green – by the end of the decade.