BP seeks approval for hydrogen plant

BP is seeking planning approval to build a hydrogen plant on Teesside.

It follows a consultation it led into its proposed HyGreen project in Redcar in 2023.

It said the plant would produce hydrogen by breaking down water using electricity, largely derived from low carbon sources, for use in industrial processes.

The plans submitted to Redcar and Cleveland Council say hydrogen produced there would be transported by pipe to nearby factories.

In its planning documents BP said it hoped to start building the plant in 2025 and complete the project by 2028.

It said the plant’s construction would create up to 500 jobs with the likelihood the “majority of these jobs would be taken by people living in Middlesbrough and Stockton area”.

The government is seeking to ramp up its home-grown hydrogen production and BP said its new plant could deliver up to 5% of the 10GW hydrogen target by 2030.

One of the initial plans for the hydrogen produced at the plant was to supply a controversial trial in Redcar to heat homes using hydrogen but this trial was scrapped in December.

Instead the hydrogen made there will be transported along a pipe, which it is also seeking planning approval to construct, to nearby factories in Teesside for various uses such as industrial heating.

Hydrogen would be produced using a method called electrolysis which involves the splitting of water into its constituent parts – hydrogen and oxygen – using electricity.

The electricity for this process would largely come from low carbon energy sources as well as a “small amount of non-renewable electricity”, BP said.

The plant would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The public consultation on these plans ends on 31 May.

A BP spokesperson said its proposals had the potential to “support energy transformation, create jobs and develop skills in the region.”