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(WO) — Equinor awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for the low-carbon hydrogen production plant H2H Saltend to Linde Engineering. Equinor also awarded an operation and maintenance service contract to Linde company BOC.  \

Saltend Power Plant ©Equinor

Linde Engineering and BOC participated in a design competition to provide FEED proposals with Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) and Operation and Maintenance for the first five years.

H2H Saltend, a low-carbon hydrogen production facility

H2H Saltend is a 600-megawatt low-carbon hydrogen production plant with carbon capture, the first of its kind and scale. The facility helps to establish the Humber as an international hub for low-carbon hydrogen.

The low-carbon hydrogen production facility is the kick-starter project for the wider Zero Carbon Humber scheme, which will provide regional infrastructure from Easington to Drax. The infrastructure will transport hydrogen to industrial customers seeking to reduce their emissions while also capturing carbon dioxide for safe sub-sea storage as part of the East Coast Cluster. These proposals aim to make the Humber, currently the UK’s most carbon-intensive industrial region, net zero by 2040.

The project also forms part of Equinor’s wider ‘Hydrogen to Humber’ ambition to deliver 1.8 gigawatts of low-carbon hydrogen production within the region, nearly 20% of the UK’s national target.

The plant design will use Linde Engineering’s hydrogen and air separation technologies, which will be combined with UK-based Johnson Matthey’s LCH™ technology. BOC will operate and maintain the low-carbon hydrogen production plant

Due to be operational by 2027 and sited at the energy-intensive Saltend Chemicals Park, to the east of Hull, the plant will help to reduce the park’s emissions by up to one-third. To achieve this, low-carbon hydrogen will directly replace natural gas in several industrial facilities. Doing so will reduce the carbon intensity of their products, as well as blend into natural gas at Equinor and SSE Thermal’s on-site Saltend Power Station. The amount of CO2 stored will be around 890,000 tonnes per year, equivalent to taking about 500,000 cars off the road annually.

According to Asbjørn Haugsgjerd, Equinor’s Project Director for the H2H Saltend project, the low-carbon hydrogen production plant is a “vital first step in creating a low-carbon hydrogen economy and achieving net zero in the Humber.”