Project Summary

This project will determine how the National Transmission System (NTS) could support UK maritime ports in providing links to large scale hydrogen infrastructure across the UK. The project will consider export and import of hydrogen through UK ports, in addition to potential maritime infrastructure decarbonisation. We will be looking to consider the technical requirements for links between ammonia cracking facilities for imported hydrogen to enable access to users across the UK. Whilst also considering how hydrogen can be moved from UK production facilities to ports for use either directly, or for Export via hydrogen carriers such as ammonia/LOHCs.

Innovation Justification

Innovative Aspects & State of the Art

Today liquid natural gas is transported across the globe to ports in the UK andtransitioned back into natural gas and injected into the UK gas networks. We believe that in the future this opportunity could be seen through the transportation of ammonia, ethanol or liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs); with their subsequent cracking prior to injection of hydrogen into the UK gas networks. Whilst cracking has been investigated, the scale, volumes and processes required for the future have not yet been fully understood and demonstrated. The production of ammonia or other LOHC's is an opportunity for the UK if excess hydrogen is produced. Consideration of the technologies and connections requiredbetween Ports and the UK Gas Networks is required. The ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp are on a similar journey to us and we are ensuring shared learning as we develop our understanding of this opportunity.

Beyond Incremental Innovation
Integration of energy systems at ports for the UK has not been undertaken and requires a novel approach for net zero energy sources that are unlikely to be located directly at Ports (Offshore wind etc...).

Readiness Levels
The Ammonia cracking technologies are in development (TRL4) and have been demonstrated at smaller scales, we will be benchmarking work from industrial processes today to ensure an optimised solution.

Integration of port systems with the UK transmission network has not been done and therefore we are at IRL1 & CRL1, we hope to achieve IRL/CRL7 by the end of Beta.
Size and Scale

We have brought together stakeholders from across the maritime industry both within the project team and through the advisory board. At the Discovery phase we have not included specific port partners as we will be determining the optimum location for demonstration with the ports through Discovery. This approach supports the innovation challenge of whole system planning for faster asset roleout as we will be developing an approach that can be copied across the UK.

BAU
The proposed innovation is novel with low readiness levels, therefore has risk associated with the delivery. Hydrogen projects are not currently possible to fund through BAU.

Counterfactuals
This project will consider the counterfactuals surrounding ammonia and other liquid hydrogen carriers use within the Maritime industry and their impact on the network to determine that the Beta demonstration of scaled cracking facilities is relevant for the UK consumer.

Impacts and Benefits

Financial

This project will support the reduction in cost for the consumer of future energy bills through providing access the global energy market, where other countries may have the ability to produce lower cost hydrogen through abundant solar etc. Further to this if the UK becomes a excess producer of hydrogen in the future, this energy could then be sold globally to provide financial benefit to the UK.

Alongside the opportunity for the energy system, this project could provide cost savings to the maritime industry in enabling them to access UK wide hydrogen production instead of relying on local production or imports.

This project will determine the potential volumes and costs associated to a range of options, prior to demonstration in Beta.

Environmental

This project supports carbon reduction both directly and indirectly. There are 1.8m metric tons of freight movement across UK ports today with an estimated 30.8TWh of energy demand predicted in 2050. Whilst electrification will support maritime decarbonisation, hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives will be vital to decarbonising this sector. Connecting our future offshore green hydrogenproduction supply to key ports across the UK is going to be key to enabling the volumes required without reliance on import.

This project will determine the carbon savings that could be supported by the UK network and production. Alongside considering the carbon savings to be seen from using imported hydrogen from other global producers.

Revenues

Export of hydrogen across the globe could be a key revenue for the UK. Although we are not yet considered a mass exporter, with the UK hydrogen industry growth and abundant wind and tidal energy sources this could change.

New to market

The technologies to be considered in this project for ammonia cracking are novel and require scaling for our application. This could be a new opportunity for the UK.

Others

We will be engaging with global ports and understanding their work and future scenarios, this could provide benefit back to the UK energy system and maritime industry. The ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam are key players in this space and have requested us to join their most recently funded activity to understand their approach. We are also engaged in the SA-PACT project to consider import of ammonia from South Africa to the UK as a source of Hydrogen.