The British infrastructure company Statera Energy has secured planning approval from a local government of Aberdeenshire (United Kingdom), for the development of its 3 GW Kintore Hydrogen. The site is planned to produce 200 kt/year of green hydrogen from surplus wind power generated from turbines. The first 500 MW of production capacity from the Kintore hydrogen project is expected to come online by 2028. Once operating at its full 3 GW capacity, the project is expected to offset emissions by 1.4 MtCO2/year. The project is planned to be developed near the Kintore substation and a recently approved BESS.
The project has been controversial and called to be scrapped from the locals over fears of the area becoming too industrialised and its impacts on the woodland and historic landscape. However, the authorities considered that the benefits in offsetting carbon emissions outweighed the existing concerns.
The UK government has backed the initial 500 MW phase of Kintore Hydrogen’s development, funding through its Net Zero Hydrogen Fund to cover 50% of its front-end engineering design (FEED), planning and construction work.