Arup commissioned for East Coast Hydrogen pre-FEED study

ECH, a joint initiative between Cadent, NGN and National Grid Gas Transmission, aims to connect 10GW of hydrogen production to the gas network in northeast England.

According to Arup, the 15-year programme of works will be carried out in discrete phases to decarbonise the NGN network, with the Pre-FEED study forming part of Phase 1 and is due to conclude mid-2023.

The rest of Phase 1 will run until 2026 and includes the FEED study and development of East Coast Cluster Infrastructure.

In a statement, Steve Saunders, UKIMEA energy skills leader at Arup, said: “Hydrogen will have a key role to play in decarbonising industry and Arup’s recent contribution to the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan and Teesside Hydrogen Vision demonstrate the environmental, economic and social potential in the Northeast of England.

“This study will consider many of the projects already identified through these regional strategies that are key for both importation, production and storage of hydrogen.

Saunders continued: “Achieving net-zero will only be achieved if we can continue to tackle the challenge together and we look forward to working closely with NGN and their partners to understand the possible scenarios for the ECH project.”

This work will involve the development of a modelling brief to confirm how many options should be modelled and to what level of detail for the next phase of the study.

When the preferred options have been identified the next phase of the study will be to develop the design with enough information to complete a FEED study. Arup said preparation for FEED will include input into routing corridors, a list of new assets required, and an understanding of what assets can be repurposed. An assessment of the general and specific project challenges with this option will be documented separately.

Chris Verity, NGNs senior project manager for hydrogen, said: ECH will be key to enabling the hydrogen economy to grow from the initial Teesside and Humber clusters and bring a viable option for achieving net zero to the whole of the NGN network area.”