UK’s largest electrolyser to supply hydrogen storage facility at Scottish windfarm

Here’s the UK government’s latest shot at ‘net zero’ climate virtue signalling. Subsidised wind farms will help produce subsidised hydrogen to fuel subsidised hydrogen vehicles such as buses and bin lorries. This is obviously even more costly than just using the wind-sourced electricity itself to run vehicles, but gets round the battery weight problem for larger vehicles like buses and goods vehicles. But to scale up, the number of wind turbines needed is going to have to be far higher than now, to provide fuel as well as nationwide electricity. Is that even feasible, let alone affordable?
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A hydrogen storage plant will be built at the UK’s largest onshore windfarm near Glasgow, after the UK government approved a £9.4m grant, reports E&T News.

The Whitelee green hydrogen project will become the UK’s largest electrolyser, a system which converts water into hydrogen gas as a way to store energy.

Hydrogen is seen as a key replacement for fossil fuels in certain applications as the world moves towards decarbonisation.

It produces just heat and water as by-products when burned or used in fuel cells, making it a highly attractive alternative to fossil fuels in industry, power, shipping and transport.

Hydrogen is categorised differently depending on how it is produced: either green hydrogen, which is produced by splitting water by electrolysis, or blue hydrogen, which is produced by splitting natural gas.

Currently, the vast majority of the world’s hydrogen fuel is created with natural gas, not water.

While green hydrogen can be a zero-emission fuel when electrolysis is powered by renewables, blue hydrogen can only be described as a net-zero carbon fuel when used in conjunction with carbon capture and storage.

ScottishPower’s new Whitelee Windfarm, the largest of its kind in the UK, will produce green hydrogen by using the renewable energy created by the windfarm and will be used to supply local transport providers with zero-carbon fuel.

Full report here.