ITM Power secures funding to deliver energy storage feasibility study

ITM Power, the Sheffield-based energy storage and clean fuel company, has secured funding from Innovate UK for a feasibility study to deploy a 100MW Power-to-Gas (P2G) energy storage project, at Runcorn, Cheshire.

Dubbed Project Centurion, this feasibility study will explore the electrolytic production, pipeline transmission, salt cavern storage and gas grid injection of green hydrogen at an industrial scale.

The project will explore the system design and costs and will assess the business case for deployment.

The aim of Project Centurion is to demonstrate a 100MW P2G energy storage system which can produce low carbon hydrogen for heat, decarbonisation of industry, and transport fuel.

Project partners ITM Power, INOVYN, Storengy, Cadent and Element Energy aim to explore the feasibility of siting a 100MW Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyser at the INOVYN Runcorn Site, which already produces hydrogen as a co-product of the chlor-alkali process.  

This site has an existing 420MW supergrid connection, power electronics and planning consent for industrial scale hydrogen production. The transport of hydrogen by pipeline to salt caverns near Lostock, where it can be stored pure or blended with natural gas, will be explored, along with the feasibility of injection into the local gas network.

The feasibility study is being supported by Innovate UK and the partners. It’s objectives are: to produce a 100MW system design with costs significantly below current targets; to build the consensus on P2G systems as an important part of a decarbonised energy system; and to produce the evidence base for raising financing for the project.

The feasibility study outputs will be a 100MW system design, a business case and delivery plan for Project Centurion with a description of the next steps, and a dissemination campaign to increase understanding of, and interest in, P2G systems.

Dr Graham Cooley, CEO of ITM Power, said: “Project Centurion is an ambitious project with an important consortium of industrial partners that share a world class vision of power-to-gas energy storage. The project explores green hydrogen production, pipeline transmission, salt cavern storage and gas grid injection at an industrial scale and will assess the business case for deployment.”

Richard Stevenson, Project Manager, INOVYN said “This is an exciting project building on our extensive experience of large scale electrolysis, generating and handling hydrogen, together with expansion of our gas storage operations into new areas. “