ITM Power plans 100 MW power-to-gas storage project in the UK

U.K.-based integrated hydrogen energy solutions provider, ITM Power has revealed that British government-run innovation agency. Innovate UK has agreed to finance the feasibility study of its “Project Centurion” in Runcorn, Cheshire, the United Kingdom.

The 100 MW Power-to-Gas (P2G) energy storage project is said to explore the electrolytic production, pipeline transmission, salt cavern storage and gas grid injection of green hydrogen at an industrial scale, and to make a significant contribution to the decarbonization of the electricity and gas networks.

The feasibility study is aimed at calculating the project’s costs and design, while also analyzing the business case for its deployment, ITM Power said in a statement released.

Together with its partners Inovy, Storengy, Cadent and Element Energy, the U.K. company will test its 100 MW Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyser at Inovy’s Runcorn Site, where hydrogen is being produced as a co-product of the chlor-alkali process. “This site has an existing 420MW supergrid connection, power electronics and planning consent for industrial scale hydrogen production,” the company said.

When completed, it continued, the “Project Centurion” will be the first power-to-gas system injecting hydrogen into the public gas network in the country, at scale. “This is an exciting project building on our extensive experience of large-scale electrolysis, generating and handling hydrogen, together with expansion of our gas storage operations into new areas,” said Inovy project manager, Richard Stevenson.

ITM Power’s Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) technology is said to implement several innovations in advanced Balance of Plant (BoP), including power tracking electronics, high efficiency AC/DC converters, high temperature ion exchange cartridges, advanced safety integration systems and enhanced control logic.

A recent report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME), has urged the U.K. government to put in place measures to support the growth of power to gas storage technologies, and suggests a series of policies that could help to achieve this.