Wood meets milestone in offshore wind to green hydrogen-to-homes project

The H100 demonstration project will initially aim to supply energy to homes in Fife, Scotland. When powered by renewable energy, the generation and burning of hydrogen produces no carbon, making it one of the most effective, scalable ways of providing heating while tackling climate change.

On completion, the project will be the first of its kind to employ a direct supply of renewable power from offshore wind to produce green hydrogen energy, heating up to 300 homes in the first instance.

If approval for the H100 Fife project is granted, SGN plans to use electricity from the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s Levenmouth offshore wind turbine in Scotland to produce green hydrogen.

SGN manages the network distributing natural gas to 5.9M homes and businesses across Scotland and parts of southern England. As part of its efforts to decarbonise the energy system and reduce emissions, the company is investigating the role that hydrogen can play, and the H100 project is a key element of this.

Wood brought together a multi-disciplinary team from across its business including environmental planning, geographical mapping, visualisation, process and pipeline engineering, renewables and hydrogen power experts to deliver a turnkey solution for SGN.

Wood technical consulting solutions chief executive Joe Sczurko said, “This is a pioneering development which could make a significant contribution towards the decarbonisation of the UK’s heating sector and net zero carbon target by 2050.”

As part of the scope of work, Wood’s team secured planning consent, completed the technical feasibility study and provided the preliminary engineering design for the candidate site.

“To identify and develop the optimal design for the site under evaluation at Machrihanish, it was essential to draw from the diverse and deep technical expertise we have within Wood,” said Mr Sczurko.

Wood worked on the project in collaboration with the Machrihanish Airbase Community Company Business Park and Airport, which was considered as one of three possible sites to host the hydrogen production, storage, and distribution infrastructure.

While H100 Fife is proposed as the site for the first hydrogen network, SGN also sees significant potential for 100% hydrogen networks in Machrihanish and Aberdeen at a later date.