Can HyNet live up to its pipeline dreams?
In the second part of our feature on the contenders for the UK’s inaugural hydrogen cluster, Utility Week visits HyNet. As well as discussing the merits of the project we hear from a major industrial user struggling to see how to decarbonise.
By David Blackman, policy correspondent
Can HyNet live up to its pipeline dreams?
In the second part of our feature on the contenders for the UK’s inaugural hydrogen cluster, Utility Week visits HyNet. As well as discussing the merits of the project we hear from a major industrial user struggling to see how to decarbonise
By Lucinda Dann, features editor
One of the issues Andy Burnham has staked his still fledgeling premiership on is a commitment to reindustrialise the UK’s flagging regions. Now, some of the energy sector’s biggest hitters are developing a blueprint for how this can be achieved in the prime minister’s own north west backyard.
They are involved in the Hynet partnership, which is one of the two projects taking part in the government’s much-delayed competition to create the UK’s first hydrogen cluster. Up for grabs is £500 million worth of support through the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Hydrogen Transport and Storage (T&S) Business Model.
In the last edition of the Digital Weekly, Utility Week went to the Humber estuary to look at how its bid is shaping up. This week, we take a trip on the West Coast Main Line for an update on the Hynet project.
Glass half-full
The area, which in contrast to the sun-baked Humber estuary lives up to the north west’s soggy stereotype on the day Utility Week visits, is clearly proud of its rich industrial heritage. A plethora of signs commemorate the world’s first passenger steam train journey at Rainhill around the St Helens home of the Pilkington UK glass factory, which is the first stop on Utility Week’s tour of Hynet.
The aim of Hynet is to create a network of pipelines across the north west, which would link up new storage caverns in Cheshire with hydrogen producers and end users across the region, including Irish utility ESB’s 880MW power station at Carrington in Greater Manchester.
One of the lynchpins of the Hynet network is the Pilkington glass factory, which has been located in St Helens for around 200 years.
Neil Syder, managing director of Pilkington, says the nature of the glass-making process means it cannot be totally electrified. This means that some form of low-carbon gas will be required in order to cut the plant’s emissions.
The company has tried alternative fuels such as bio-gases but their cost proved “prohibitive”, he says.
Hydrogen also offers Pilkington a crucial edge in a market where the company struggles to compete on cost with cheaper rivals in countries like China, says Syder: “In the UK, if you're not moving and being innovative in mass production, you need to get out of the market.
“It's more expensive to manufacture in the UK than anywhere else. It is a challenge so you've got to keep on the innovation cycle.”
There is an opportunity to provide low-carbon building materials for construction companies and their clients seeking to meet their corporate social responsibility objectives, says Chris Manson, chief executive of fellow Hynet partner Progressive Energy.
Creating a hydrogen fuel system will enable the north west to attract new industry, he says: “It's safeguarding industry but also bringing in new industry. “We are not here to try and foist something onto a bunch of people. There are genuine users of this system who are clamouring for a solution.”
It is important for many industries to continue to receive “gaseous forms of energy”, says Robert Donovan, project director – west at gas network Cadent, which originated the Hynet concept more than a decade ago.
Pilkington has carried out a demonstration project at its nearby research and development facility, which proves that high-quality glass can be produced using hydrogen.
However, to run a plant of this size a lot of hydrogen would have to be piped to the site. When the trial was being carried out on a much smaller production line than at the main plant, four Arctic lorries were turning up each hour to supply the hydrogen, says Manson.
A similar challenge faces the biggest power station proposed on the proposed Hynet system at Carrington in Greater Manchester, which its Irish owners EBS wants to eventually switch over from natural gas to hydrogen. ESB is planning to convert its gas-fired units at Carrington, starting at to 45% hydrogen and working up to full reliance on the low-carbon gas.
Even this incremental approach is breaking new ground, says Ruth Hobson, hydrogen technical project manager at ESB. “No other unit in the world has undergone this retrofit before and burnt hydrogen at this scale in this type of unit.”
However, supplying sufficient hydrogen to power the plant would be tough logistically, she says: “If we were to operate on 100% hydrogen, we would need over 100 tube trailers an hour.”
In addition, as a peaking plant, Carrington will often receive under an hour’s notice from the system operator to fire up its turbines, Hobson says: “We need to have a bank of hydrogen to be able at the drop of a hat to start drawing down those volumes so that we can react to demands from the grid.
“We need to be able to access the fuel in an instant. Obviously, at the moment we have a national scale natural gas network, which balances itself. In order for us to be able to operate in the same way for the grid, which is what we still want to do to maintain our competitive position and our flexibility, we need the storage.”
Underground reserves
Like the Humber, one of the main reasons that Hynet is suitable for hydrogen is the north west’s rich legacy of mined out salt caverns. The strata of salt under the Cheshire countryside are perfect for storing hydrogen, says Manson: “There are two big strata of salt in the UK, one in north west and one in the Humber, which is why those are the two places where you should do a hydrogen economy.”
However, at 600m deep Hynet’s mooted caverns are significantly shallower than other storage sites in the UK, according to Hynet, meaning that the hydrogen can be withdrawn rapidly and relatively cheaply by potential off-takers like ESB at Carrington.
Storengy, part of the Engie group, is planning a total of 19 hydrogen storage caverns across a 2km by 2km stretch of land near Northwich that the West Coast Main Line runs across. Frank Turnel-Josek, managing director of Storengy, says the company is currently planning to build out the project in three roughly equivalent phases of six, six and seven caverns. However, the caverns can be rolled out flexibly.
This would provide around 1,300GWh of storage capacity, which Hynet estimates is around 14 times greater than today’s pumped hydro and battery capacity combined. To further put the scale of Hynet into context, Manson says the biggest pump storage plant being developed in the UK at Cori Glas would deliver around 30GWh.
The scale of the storage capacity planned at Hynet could also help the UK to ride out prolonged ‘Dunkelflaute’ wintry periods of low wind speeds and cold temperatures, says Manson.
Another key difference between the Humber and Hynet projects is that while the former is a hydrogen-only project, Hynet also contains a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) system.“It’s called Hynet, so we'd always say the hydrogen was the ultimate intent but it’s doing both,” says Manson.
This system, which is due to be completed by 2028 after reaching financial close last year, will see CO2 piped into a new store in depleted offshore gas fields in Liverpool Bay.
The delivery of these projects, together with fitting carbon capture technology at Heidelberg Materials cement plant at Padeswood means, says Manson, “Hynet is happening.". He added: That full system is fully buttoned down with government contracts, contracts between each parties, and fully financed and in construction. You can see the piles going into the ground.”
In addition, RWE has just finished feasibility on a large-scale green hydrogen production project and Cadent is ready to submit a Development Consent Order for the Hynet hydrogen pipeline, having completed the Front End Engineering Design and two statutory consultations.
The prospect of being served by this hydrogen pipeline has made it much easier to justify exploring the conversion of the plant, says Hobson: “A lot of existing assets would love to be where Carrington is located because hydrogen is being delivered to our door. ESB is an electricity network, we're not a gas network or pipeline experts. The fact that Hynet is doing that work for us, and we can just be an off taker at the end is a much easier proposition.”
However, in order to press the button on any investment, the government needs to make a decision on the T&S competition, she says: “We don't know that we're going to have that get that hydrogen supply so we're cautious about progressing down this pathway.”
Timing is even more pressing for Pilkington, which is due to carry out a 20 yearly refit of its production lines by 2030, design work for which must begin next year, says Syder: “We don't see any other alternative for fuel. We haven't got a backup.”
Prime minister Andy Burnham is aware of the importance of Hynet for the north west economy, having signed a letter pressing his predecessor Keir Starmer to approve the project when he was Greater Manchester mayor earlier this year.
As Manson says: “This is very deliverable. We're ready. This project has not just started in the last year or two, it's been going over 10 years.
“We're desperate to get on with it and make it happen.”
“This is a very deliverable. We’re ready. This project has not just started in the last year or two, it’s been going over 10 years.”
Chris Manson, chief executive, Progressive Energy
