EMEC bags over £500,000 funding from Scottish government for green H2 projects

The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) has been awarded funding of over £500,000 for four feasibility projects supporting green hydrogen innovation and development. The four project consortia is preparing for feasibility studies supporting the development of novel hydrogen production, storage and distribution solutions.

The award comes as part of the Scottish Government's Hydrogen Innovation Scheme through which 32 projects across Scotland are set to receive funding of £7 million to drive innovation in the production, storage and distribution of renewable hydrogen.

Launched in June 2022, the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme is a capital funding stream of the Emerging Energy Technologies Fund, designed to support the development and demonstration of renewable hydrogen technologies and products needed to support the Scottish Government's ambition of 5GW installed hydrogen production capacity by 2030. 

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At the All-Energy conference last week in Glasgow, First Minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf commented, "We have committed £100 million, over this parliamentary session, to supporting the green hydrogen sector. Part of that funding has been allocated to the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme, which supports feasibility studies, technical demonstrations and testing facilities for new ideas about how to produce, store and distribute hydrogen". 

He further added, "The projects cover a wide range of different areas – such as how to produce and store hydrogen on floating windfarms, and how to decarbonise agriculture and forestry work in rural areas. Together, they show the range of possible ways in which hydrogen can be produced, used and stored. They highlight the expertise and innovation that is already such an important part of the sector. And, of course, they demonstrate the scale of the opportunities that hydrogen can create."

Matthew Storey, EMEC's Hydrogen Development Manager, said "This funding signals a clear willingness from Scottish Government to integrate green hydrogen into our future energy system. Using our experience in applied hydrogen R&D, sustainable fuels and techno economics, EMEC will be delivering this work in partnership with skilled teams across the project consortia and are delighted to be leading HySKUA". 

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The projects explore various technology concepts which support offshore and off-grid hydrogen production, sea water electrolysis and an artificial intelligence model to support hydrogen logistics, according to EMEC. They are as following:

• HySKUA focuses on offshore production of green hydrogen on a floating hydrogen production hub with the potential to be co-located with Scottish offshore windfarms, with EMEC as the lead partner. 
• Feasibility study for project HyBrine aims to achieve low cost, efficient, and sustainable hydrogen production by using seawater as the water source and through technology advancements that avoid the need for desalination systems and enable more durable, reliable electrolysis.
• A study to develop a decision support system and use explainable artificial intelligence to support operational efficiency and logistics solutions for hydrogen production.
• Off-grid Green Hydrogen Production Demonstration to assess the feasibility of an off-grid green hydrogen production demonstration project.

"The four projects cover key areas which require further research and development if we are to realise hydrogen's potential in the energy mix and will help to identify issues in supporting the scale up of these hydrogen technologies", observed Storey.