Essar Energy Transition (EET)—part of the energy portfolio of Mumbai-based Essar Global Fund Ltd. (Essar)—will install Europe’s first 100% hydrogen-fueled power plant at Essar Oil (UK) Ltd.’s 10-million tonne/year (tpy) Stanlow integrated refining complex at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire County, England, between Liverpool and Manchester.
To be known as EET Hydrogen Power (EET HP), the project will include construction of a hydrogen-ready combined heat and power plant (CHP) at the EET Fuels-operated Stanlow refinery to replace existing boiler units at the site that currently generate about 50 Mw of power for refining operations, EET Fuels said on July 12.
Slated for development in two phases and due to complete construction in 2027, EET HP will be equipped to generate 125 Mw of power and 6,000 tonnes/day of steam from the new, hydrogen-ready gas turbines instead of the existing CHP plant’s inefficient steam turbines.
The project’s replacement of hydrocarbons with hydrogen for industrial processes will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at Stanlow by 740,000 tpy, EET Fuels said.
Once completed, the EET HP project will also provide low carbon power to other industrial users in the region to support their decarbonization targets, according to the operator.
Confirmation of the proposed EET HP project—which will receive hydrogen from fellow subsidiary EET Hydrogen’s nearby production plants—comes as part of Essar’s multiyear $3-billion investment program to transform the Stanlow refinery into the world’s lowest-carbon refinery and the overall site into an integrated energy transition hub capable of producing and delivering low-cost, low-carbon energies while reducing CO2 emissions across northwest England and North Wales (OGJ Online, Feb. 13, 2024).
Integral to EET Fuels’ 2030 target of cutting total emissions at the Stanlow refinery by 95%, EET HP also forms a core element of the HyNet North West project at Liverpool Bay—one of the UK government’s Track-1 carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) clusters for regional industrial decarbonization (OGJ Online, Feb. 9, 2022).
