The UK’s buses, ferries, and trains could be swapping diesel fuel for green hydrogen as early as 2022.
Already a serious producer of renewable energy through its network of wind and solar farms, Scottish Power is getting into the green hydrogen business with a new solar + storage project to be purpose-built near Glasgow, reports The Guardian. The initiative will supply the power to run an electrolyzer, run by ITM Power, that will collect hydrogen by separating it from water molecules. Compression and distribution, meanwhile, will be handled by BOC Ltd.
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The hydrogen delivered by the three-company partnership is “expected to play a major role in helping the UK to meet its climate targets,” The Guardian writes. There are plans for the Glasgow project “to be replicated across the country using Scottish Power’s wind farms, solar panels, and battery installations to use renewable energy when it is at its cheapest to run the electrolyzers that create hydrogen.”
The partnership, said Lindsay McQuade, head of renewables at Scottish Power, will change the UK’s transportation system forever. “Our revolutionary approach—which really will be a game-changer—fully supports the large-scale transformation needed to replace heavy diesel vehicles with cleaner, greener alternatives.”
By 2022, she added, the project is expected to offer “a packaged solution that brings all of the pieces of the jigsaw together—production, distribution, supply.” All the fleet owners will have to do, she added, is “provide the vehicles.”
