Hydrogen 'alternative fuel' hub in Barrow will be first for county

Paper producer Kimberly-Clark, which makes products including Andrex, Kleenex and Huggies at its facility in Barrow, has signed an agreement with Carlton Power to develop a green hydrogen scheme on land opposite its site on the A590.

The £40m scheme would be the first of its kind in the county and part of Kimberly-Clark’s wider mission to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. It recently announced plans to decarbonise approximately 80 per cent of its electricity supply in the UK through a Power Purchase Agreement with Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust, which will lead to the construction of a new onshore wind farm in South Lanarkshire that will start operating in early 2023.

Kimberly-Clark and Carlton Power have been in discussions about the plan for the last 12 months.

Carlton Power had already been working on a similar scheme with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which will deliver green hydrogen to businesses in the Trafford area and was also working with Kimberly-Clark around reducing its carbon emissions.

The site will import renewable electricity from the grid to power an electrolysis plant and produce hydrogen with some stored on site.

"We'll have a simple pipe, which will take the hydrogen from our site into Kimberly-Clark and then Kimberly-Clark will use that in their processes to offset the use of natural gas,” says Carlton Power project director Eric Adams.

Kimberly-Clark is in the process of changing some of the boilers on site to use hydrogen.

Eric says the transition to hydrogen at Kimberly-Clark is only part of the plan and he hopes in the future other businesses in Barrow will be able to use hydrogen from the site.

"It will enable other businesses in the area to start considering hydrogen as a source of fuel instead of natural gas,” he says.

“We are keen to ensure that the project itself has an expansion capability so that in time we can serve other users. It's very much a nucleus project around helping the Barrow area and industry in the area to start that transition and also to become a nucleus for skills development and training to enable upskilling in the area to service the net zero economy.”

The hydrogen will be produced using only electricity from renewable sources and Carlton is exploring the potential for using a solar farm to power the electrolyzer.

“Even if we have that it will be combined and supplemented by grid supplied electricity," says Eric.

"We'll put in place a contractual mechanism with a renewable power generator, which will ensure that whenever we have the electrolyzer operating the renewable generator is generating electricity.”

The project will initially use a 35MW electrolyser, expected to produce approximately 3500 tonnes of hydrogen every year, most of which will be used by Kimberly-Clark.

Eric says there is capacity to put more electrolyzers on the site and the original electrolyzer will be able to operate more consistently as more renewable energy sources come on stream in the future.

It is hoped the five-hectare site, which is to be located adjacent to Kimberly-Clark, will enter commercial operation in 2025.

The project’s progress is dependent on planning consent, as well as funding, including from the Government’s Hydrogen Investment Package.

Eric says the application for Government funding will be submitted in

October and he is confident the project will be successful.

Government funding will cover 20 per cent of the cost, as well as providing a premium to allow Carlton to sell the hydrogen at the same price as natural gas.

It is also in the process of raising investment from a number of other funds.

Carlton Power, which is based in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, began in 1995 focusing on developing gas-fired power stations but has continued to adapt its energy production projects to incorporate solar and hydrogen.

As well as the Barrow and Trafford projects, Carlton Power is also developing a scheme at Langage, in Plymouth.