Ørsted and partners secure government funding for hydrogen project

The ‘Gigastack’ feasibility study, led by ITM Power, is a six-month project to investigate delivering bulk, low-cost and zero-carbon hydrogen.

The funding has been secured as part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Hydrogen Supply Competition, which looks at ways to accelerate developing low carbon hydrogen supply solutions.

The aim of the project is to identify opportunities to reduce the cost of producing hydrogen through electrolysis, making it a more viable option for the UK’s energy system and for decarbonising industry.

The project will investigate developing a new 5-MW stack design to reduce material costs; a new semi-automated manufacturing facility with an electrolyser capacity of up to 1 GW a year to increase throughput and decrease labour costs; deploying large-scale and low-cost 100+ MW electrolyser systems using 5-MW units; and innovations in operating these large electrolysers to enable them to operate with large-scale renewable energy.

ITM Power chief executive Dr Graham Cooley said, “The Gigastack Project seeks to significantly lower the cost of producing green hydrogen by scaling the individual electrolyser stacks to 5 MW and the production process to 1 GW of electrolysis capacity per annum. We are delighted to be working on this important initiative, backed by the UK Government, with Ørsted, the largest supplier of offshore wind in the UK.”

Ørsted UK managing director Matthew Wright said, “We must continue taking urgent action to limit the damaging effects of climate change. The UK already leads the world in deploying renewable energy and accelerating the use of new technologies, such as green hydrogen, has a crucial role to play in decarbonising industrial processes. We have seen the cost of offshore wind reduced dramatically thanks to industry and government working together, and I hope this project can be the start of a similar journey with green hydrogen.”

Ørsted vice president for hydrogen Anders Christian Nordstrøm said, “Combining renewable power with flexible green hydrogen production is a key part of decarbonising energy systems across Europe and ultimately creating a world that runs entirely on green energy.

“Hydrogen production by electrolysis is a technology with great potential and the Gigastack project is an important step forward as we look to reduce costs and make green hydrogen a viable solution for the energy transformation. It is great to have this support from the UK Government for the project.”

UK Climate Change Minister Lord Duncan said, “Using the power of hydrogen could help cut emissions, create jobs and make industrial processes cleaner and greener, benefiting the whole economy as we work towards net zero by 2050. This innovative project from Ørsted and ITM will help our efforts to roll out hydrogen at scale by the 2030s – a crucial step towards ending the UK’s contribution to global warming.”