Driving the energy transition for industry  

Achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions while still delivering economic growth means we must find a way to decarbonize our industrial activities. Implementing carbon capture, utilization and storage combined with new clean energy will be one avenue, especially for countries’ most carbon intensive industrial regions. 

Following the completion of a feasibility study and preliminary front-end engineering and design in 2022, Penspen, one of Sidara’s global energy companies, has started to explore the next steps to implementing a successful carbon capture and storage project for a carbon intense industrial cluster in the UK.  

The team is examining pipeline development for both CCUS and hydrogen delivery, to serve a wide range of heavy industrial plants including oil refining, steel manufacture, cement, and chemicals.  

Essential to the UK economy but producer of high levels of CO2 emissions, the industrial powerhouse has the opportunity to deliver the nation’s first zero carbon region and help the country on its journey to becoming a net zero carbon economy by 2050.  

Partnering to accelerate decarbonization 

Through strategic partnerships and enabling a hydrogen economy, large-scale carbon capture across the region will accelerate decarbonization and reinforce the UK’s position as a global leader in clean growth.  

Developing a CCUS hub – a cluster of emission facilities that share the same CO2 transportation and storage or utilization infrastructure – would help accelerate development and lower upfront costs.  

Aiming to become the world’s largest hydrogen production plant with carbon capture is planned as the anchor project. It will be the starting point for the CO2 and hydrogen pipeline network, connecting energy and energy-intensive industrial sites throughout the region, and giving businesses the options to directly capture their emissions or fuel-switch to hydrogen.  

Sharing pipelines for low-carbon hydrogen and captured carbon emissions provides additional efficiencies. Not only will this free-up resources for upskilling, apprenticeships and educational opportunities to support a new clean industry but will also help protect and save thousands of existing jobs. 

As this shared infrastructure is delivered, other new projects currently in development will also be able to connect their infrastructure to the pipelines.  

A clean and prosperous future 

By drawing on existing skills and infrastructure, new jobs and export opportunities will emerge for British businesses.  

At the same time, existing jobs will be preserved by enabling energy intensive industries to continue operating, into a cleaner future. 

The site should become the base for the UK’s first net zero carbon industrial region, helping to create a cleaner environment for future generations and also establish the wider region as a global leader in decarbonization.