ERM has been awarded £3.12m from the UK Government to further develop its ERM-Dolphyn project, concerning the production of ‘green’ hydrogen at scale from floating, offshore wind turbines.

To meet carbon targets in the UK and more widely around the world, it is now widely accepted that hydrogen needs to be a significant component in any viable long-term solution, for heat, electricity generation and transport.

ERM’s Dolphyn project, which is a first of its kind, is an innovative integrated system combining all of the technologies required to bring the latest floating wind and hydrogen production technologies together to enable offshore wind resources to contribute toward hydrogen production.

ERM believes through their Dolphyn project a 400 turbine ‘farm’ (20 x 20 array) will have a capacity of 4GW, producing sufficient supply to heat more than 1.5 million UK homes with no carbon emissions.

The initial engineering work, which was a phase 1 “proof of concept,” is now complete and with the support of the UK Government under its ‘Hydrogen Supply Programme’, the project now moves forward to Phase 2 to undertake detailed engineering and consents, with a view to making a final investment decision on a 2MW prototype facility by March 2021. This also gives time for other stakeholder investment into the project.

Minster for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, Kwasi Kwarteng, said: “Hydrogen offers the opportunity of a cleaner, greener fuel for heating our homes and getting us from A to B.”

“The innovative ERM Dolphyn project is a clear step in that direction - particularly in this year of climate action.”

Commenting on what this project could mean, Tim Strawn, Regional CEO at ERM says 
“ERM’s Dolphyn project provides a significant opportunity to progress towards a carbon neutral society. The UK government’s support of this project has accelerated our ability to demonstrate that zero carbon gas can be generated commercially at large scale for use across the UK. This is an extremely exciting project for ERM which we believe will provide a real world solution for addressing the energy transition need.”

The development plan for the project has a target date for the operational start-up of the 2MW prototype facility by summer 2024. A 10MW full scale pre-commercial facility is planned to follow by 2027, with full scale commercialisation shortly afterwards.

KeyFacts Energy: Renewable Energy news