Decarbonisation ambitions boosted by Government funding

Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and membership organisation CATCH have secured Government funding to start work on a roadmap to support the Humber’s plans to decarbonise the region.

The joint bid for funding from Innovate UK will enable the first phase of work on a detailed decarbonisation delivery plan for the region’s major industrial cluster, which will aim to protect important jobs and industries while reducing carbon emissions.

The Humber’s bid was awarded £96,000 to develop a plan for producing the roadmap (phase one), which – if approved – could lead to a multi-million pound bid to develop the roadmap itself in phase two.

Now, the Humber LEP and CATCH are working to create the Humber Industrial Decarbonisation Roadmap – which would set out plans to decarbonise the region’s major industries through measures such as Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage and hydrogen fuel switching.

It will complement wider work on decarbonisation being led by the LEP and partners as the region aims to become net zero carbon by 2040.

The roadmap project team are working with the region’s two deployment projects, which have also received phase one funding:

• Humber Industrial Decarbonisation Deployment Project: Humber-DP will identify and develop potential anchor projects to maximise emission reductions in the most appropriate, timeliest, cost effective and efficient manner and develop world leading industrial CO2 transport and storage system
• Green Hydrogen for Humber: This will lead to the production of renewable hydrogen, at the Gigawatt scale, from polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysis. This will be distributed to a mix of industrial energy users in Immingham.

The Humber LEP set out the region’s ambition to become net zero carbon in its Humber Clean Growth Local White Paper published at the start of November.

It is also at the heart of the Local Industrial Strategy it has developed with Government, which is expected to be published shortly.

The roadmap will point to where public and private investment will need to be targeted over the next two decades to reduce the Humber’s industrial emissions.

It will also identify opportunities for attracting new businesses to the region to utilise the low carbon infrastructure that will be developed.

Lord Haskins, chairman of the Humber LEP, said: “The climate change crisis will not be addressed without close collaboration between the Government, industry and places across the UK, so we are pleased to be working with partners on a roadmap to enable this in the Humber.

“As the highest emitting industrial cluster in the country, our region has the potential to make the biggest difference in the fight to reduce emissions.  As today’s announcement shows, businesses are developing projects that will enable us to do that at pace.”

David Talbot, CEO of CATCH, said: “We are thrilled to collaborate with the Humber LEP and win this bid to solve the biggest challenge facing our industries over the next few decades.

“We need to ensure not just the competitiveness of our much-needed energy intensive industries, but also their survival – we want to see these vital businesses stay in the Humber and decarbonisation is central to this.”

Bryony Livesey, Challenge director, Industrial Decarbonisation, said: “As the UK goes through trying times we nonetheless must plan for the future.

“These projects are the first stride towards the Government’s plans to develop cost-effective decarbonisation in industrial hubs that tackle the emissions challenge that UK industry faces.

“We look forward to the development of these plans and their contribution to meeting the 2050 net-zero target.”