RE: One for hydropulse21 Dec 2025 17:32
Cureboy
A critical factor in Hydropulse is that there is a guaranteed end-user for the H2, for example, a production process or a vehicle fuelling station. Pretty much a pipe from the electrolyser plugged into the user's kit. Hence, selling H2 as a 'service'.
The reason the Whitelees project has been dumped is that one of the planned off-takes was to be hydrogen -fuelled buses in Glasgow. The plan was to truck it the 20 or so miles to the bus depot(s) re-fuelling facility. No such buses have been ordered, and they are unlikely ever to be. No, or not enough, customers for the gas. I am less familiar with the Cromerty project, but the planned customers were several local distilleries. Perhaps they are less keen? Maybe Scottish Power just wanted to use its money elsewhere.
However, your underlying point about the extent of curtailment is absolutely correct and will get worse and worse as more new wind capacity comes on-stream in Scotland. Given the costs and risks of road transport for H2, it is unlikely to be a viable alternative. Indeed, those factors are drivers for the distributed and localised supply model that Hydropulse is designed to address.
There have been plans proposed (in Scotland) to export H2 to Germany. That could be either a pipeline or by sea. On that basis, Grangemouth would be an interesting possibility as it is an established petro-chemical site (hence all the hazard issues in planning are addressed). It is also an operational port, well used to shipping chemicals. However, that would be a large-scale plant and maybe a Linde type of project. Again, who knows what might emerge?
Another important consideration is that as the grid is upgraded over the next decade, will curtailment still be as big an issue, or will the power just be too expensive for large-scale green H2 production in the UK and it is better to stick power-hungry data-centres around the place to soak it all up? Again, who knows?
It is absurd that we face the certainty of £billions in curtailment 'waste' yet have no response that is not accompanied by significant operational and financial risks.
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