SGN and H2 Green launch hydrogen hub to cut transport emissions

UK based H2 Green has signed a deal with SGN Commercial Services (SGN) to build a green hydrogen production facility to power and decarbonise rail, bus and heavy goods transport around Inverness.

The Getech business company said in a statement that due to Inverness’s location, hydrogen presents a valuable and cost-effective route for widespread decarbonisation of the wider Highland region.

SGN’s former gas holder site on Harbour Road lies between Inverness’s rail depot and industrial area and will provide green hydrogen directly to large volume anchor customers, including rail, bus, and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). The hub capacity is expected to scale in the medium term to eight tonnes of hydrogen per day, which could service 800 HGVs per day and have the capacity to reduce carbon emissions by 30,000 tonnes per year.

The hydrogen generation can also provide zero-carbon heat and medical-grade oxygen for hospitals, aquiculture and water treatment works in the area.

Inverness is to be the first site developed by the partners after they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in January this year to explore the establishment of hydrogen supply hubs across Scotland and England, with 21 SGN sites earmarked for development.  

“We’re excited to be launching our first project with SGN and we’re confident this will have a huge impact on the decarbonisation of Inverness and the wider Highlands region, where transportation has a high carbon cost,” said Luke Johnson, managing director of H2 Green.

“We’re looking to essentially take a redundant piece of land and bring it back into commercial use as a scalable long term clean energy solution to reduce transport emissions, benefitting the planet and the local economy,” he said.

Getech also agreed with SGN to progress three further UK sites to an advanced stage of evaluation and the parties were discussing the addition of several, recently identified sites to the joint review list.