(Aldbrough / Great Britain) – SSE Thermal and Equinor are developing plans for one of the world's largest hydrogen storage facilities in Aldbrough, East Yorkshire, on the UK's east coast. The plant could absorb low-carbon hydrogen as early as 2028.
The existing natural gas storage facility, which became operational there in 2011, is jointly owned by both companies and consists of nine underground salt caverns, each of which, according to SSE Thermal, is approximately the size of London's St. Paul's Cathedral (note: volume around 152.000 cubic meters). In order to upgrade the system for hydrogen, the existing caverns would have to be converted or new ones built. The initial capacity should be “at least 320 gigawatt hours” – which, according to SSE, would make the storage “significantly larger than all hydrogen storage systems in operation in the world today”.
Equinor produces blue hydrogen for hydrogen power plant
Equinor had already announced in the summer of 2020 that it would develop 1,8 gigawatts (GW) of electrolysers in the region to produce blue hydrogen (produced from natural gas in combination with carbon capture and offshore storage). The project, called “Hydrogen to Humber Saltend” (H2H Saltend), is the start of the journey to decarbonise the Humber region – the UK’s largest industrial region in terms of emissions – the company said at the time. As reported, the location is: Saltend Chemical Park near the city of Hull, just a few minutes' drive south-west of Aldbrough. In the first phase, a 600 megawatt auto-thermal reformer (ATR) with carbon capture will be built; a process that produces synthesis gas consisting of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The plant will enable the local industry to switch completely to hydrogen, says Equinor.
The pilot phase will be followed by a 1,2 GW production facility before the end of the decade to supply the Keadby power station, which is planned by SSE Thermal and Equinor to be the world's first 100 percent hydrogen-powered power station. The site is southwest of Hull on the River Trent, a tributary to the Humber.
According to the company, the project by SSE Thermal and Equinor connects production, storage and demand in the local industrial region. While the Aldbrough facility will initially store the hydrogen produced for Keadby, its benefits go “far beyond electricity generation”. It would support growing hydrogen ambitions across the region, unlock the potential for green hydrogen and also supply heat to a growing consumer market from the late 2020s.
Equinor then wants to expand “H2H Saltend” with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions in the Humber industrial region to zero by 2040. To this end, a large-scale network for blue and green hydrogen should be installed, as well as a network for the transport and storage of captured CO2 emissions.
However, Aldbrough Hydrogen Storage and the other hydrogen projects in the region are in the development phase. The final investment decisions depended “on the progress of the necessary business models and the associated infrastructure”.
SSE Thermal is the thermal power generation subsidiary of utility and telecommunications company SSE Plc, based in England and Australia. The oil and gas company Equinor ASA, which is majority owned by the Norwegian state, was created in 2018 from the merger of the state-owned company Statoil and the natural gas and oil activities of Norsk Hydro.
Green electricity from the “Dogger Bank” offshore wind farm
As part of a joint venture, SSE and Equinor are also jointly developing the “Dogger Bank” offshore wind farm on the undersea sandbank of the same name in the North Sea on the northwestern edge of the German Bight. 
Completion with a total output of 3,6 gigawatts is planned for 2025.
The project consists of three construction phases of 1,2 gigawatts each, in which SSE Renewables, Equinor and the Italian oil company Eni Spa are involved in varying constellations. RWE is building a fourth cluster (“Sofia”, 1,4 GW). The Norwegian engineering service provider Aibel AS received the construction contract from the consortium in November 2019 for the part of the wind farm located in British waters, the first construction phase of which is located around 130 kilometers off the coast and is geographically located around East Yorkshire.
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SSE and Equinor plan to produce, store and use hydrogen in the Humber region. / © SSE Thermal
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Location of the “Dogger Bank” wind farm off the east coast of Great Britain © SSE Renewables
