Black & Veatch Designs 20-MW Whitelee Green Hydrogen Project
U.S. contractor Black & Veatch has completed the front-end engineering design (FEED) study for the green hydrogen-focused Whitelee project expansion in Scotland.
Whitelee's green hydrogen site is a proposed development by ScottishPower Energy Retail Limited, which is the United Kingdom subsidiary of Spain’s energy giant Iberdrola. The project, located south of Glasgow and just west of Lochgoin Reservoir, is designed to install 20 MW of electrolyzer capacity to be powered by wind and solar generation already located nearby.
“ScottishPower develops green hydrogen responsibly and we selected Black & Veatch because of their decades of experience in hydrogen and strong commitment to safety,” said Mark Bradley, Hydrogen Director, ScottishPower Green Hydrogen Limited, in a statement. “We take a holistic development approach, consulting with local stakeholders to ensure we are able to successfully develop low carbon sources of energy for our customers.”
The engineering team from Black & Veatch has delivered a design focused on safety at the forefront and leveraging the internal experience of constructing and commissioning hydrogen production facilities in other regions. The FEED study incorporates the original equipment manufacturer’s (OEM) electrolyzer package design, as well as the design of all balance of plant scope including hydrogen compression and a tube-trailer dispensing station.
The first phase of the project covers 10 MW of proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis, and the conceptual design from Black & Veatch includes a second phase incorporating an additional 10 MW in electrolysis capacity. The second phase has been shortlisted for the U.K. government’s Hydrogen Allocation Round (HAR2) process.
Hydrogen is a light, energy-dense gas which does not contain carbon in its molecular chain and does not emit carbon dioxide when combusted. Some turbine OEMs such as Mitsubishi and GE Vernova already have conducted successful experiments blending hydrogen into natural gas feed for electricity generation.
“We anticipate that demand for green hydrogen will increase over the next few years,” reads an earlier report by ScottishPower Renewables on their website. “Producing green hydrogen requires a lot of electricity. As Whitelee already has a high level of renewable generation production and a lot of existing infrastructure, it is a good location for development of a green hydrogen production and storage facility.”
Green or carbon-free hydrogen is produced by electrolyzers which are powered by non-emitting energy resources such as wind, solar, hydro and nuclear. Another way to separate and produce hydrogen is by steam reforming of methane natural gas, which is more carbon-intensive.
“This innovative project will produce green hydrogen from adjacent onshore wind as part of the U.K. government’s HAR funding program, and we look forward to continued collaboration with the ScottishPower team,” said Youssef Merjaneh, senior vice president and manager director of the Europe, Middle East and Africa markets for Black & Veatch.
Black & Veatch is also the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) provider for Advanced Clean Energy Storage I (ACES I), a green hydrogen hub in Utah in the United States, and is considered a global innovator in the design and engineering of green hydrogen plants.
The 539-MW Whitelee wind farm is touted as the largest onshore wind power facility in the United Kingdom, according to ScottishPower. Whiteless has more than 200 Siemens and Alstom wind turbines in place.
Eventually, the company is planning to install 1.5 GW of battery storage system capacity in a field adjacent to the existing Whitelee Extension substation alongside the wind farm.
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Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
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Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.