px Group’s Saltend Chemicals Park in the UK has been selected as the site for a new green hydrogen facility.
An investment of between £180 million (€209 million) and £240 million (€279 million) by Meld Energy, the green hydrogen industrial developer, has been made for the facility to be built in Hull.
Meld Energy is an international hydrogen development company and is working with the global energy management company, World Fuel Services Corporation, to develop green hydrogen supply chains.
World Kinect Sustainability Ventures, a subsidiary of the publicly listed US Fortune 500 company, acquired a 50% stake in Meld in late 2022.
Meld is currently bidding for development support from the UK’s Net Zero Hydrogen Fund. Should the bid win government backing, FEED (Front End Engineering Design) is expected to begin in November and will run concurrently with planning application processes. Building would commence less than a year later with a target operation in early 2027.
The facility will be the UK’s largest green hydrogen production facility, with an initial installed capacity of 100MW and the potential to increase its capacity to over 200MW in a second development stage.
Green hydrogen would be produced at the facility using electrolysis, which involves using electricity to split water into its constituent elements - hydrogen and oxygen.
Through using renewable electricity for this process, the hydrogen produced would be “green” hydrogen, as compared to grey and blue hydrogen, which is more carbon-intensive. The hydrogen produced by Meld will be used to provide energy on-site at Saltend, helping to switch over from more carbon-intensive fuels and chemical feedstock to emissions-free green hydrogen. The Humber is the UK’s most carbon-intensive region.
Geoff Holmes, CEO of px Group, said: “Meld Energy’s decision to invest at Saltend Chemicals Park proves once again that Saltend is the go-to location for industrial decarbonisation and the UK energy transition. Meld’s plans are on a scale that will make a significant impact on domestic decarbonisation - it is a project that the government should find impossible to ignore.”
Chris Smith, CEO & founder of Meld Energy, added: “Saltend Chemicals Park is the perfect site for our green hydrogen facility. Saltend has a rich knowledge of decarbonisation projects and, importantly, has future users of the hydrogen to be produced already in place.”
New green hydrogen plant planned for the UK
