The Gigastack feasibility study is a six-month project, led by ITM Power, to explore the potential delivery of bulk, low-cost and zero-carbon hydrogen
Image: Gigastack project is aimed at validating the delivery of bulk, low-cost and zero-carbon hydrogen. Photo courtesy of Ørsted A/S.
Denmark-based energy company Ørsted in partnership with ITM Power and Element Energy, has won UK Government funding for a green hydrogen project.
The Gigastack feasibility study is a six-month project, led by ITM Power, to explore the potential delivery of bulk, low-cost and zero-carbon hydrogen.
Orsted said that the funding is part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Hydrogen Supply Competition, to accelerate the development of low carbon hydrogen supply solutions.
In addition, the project is designed to identify opportunities to reduce the production cost of hydrogen through electrolysis process, and making it a more sustainable option for the UK decarbonising industry.
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’ve 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.”
Gigastack project will demonstrate delivery of bulk hydrogen
The Gigastack project is aimed at validating the delivery of bulk, low-cost and zero-carbon hydrogen through gigawatt scale polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysis manufactured in the UK.
The project is expected to evaluate the development of a new 5MW stack design to reduce material costs and a new semi-automated manufacturing facility with an electrolyser capacity of up to 1GW per year to increase throughput and decrease labour costs.
In addition, it will investigate the deployment of large scale and low cost over 100MW electrolyser systems using a number of the 5MW units also comes under the project scope.
Ørsted Hydrogen vice president 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 this 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.”