SSE Thermal’s £350m to £400m 50MW project would see hydrogen produced and stored at a site near Aldbrough on Yorkshire’s coast before being used to power a turbine to create electricity to feed into the grid at times of peak demand.
One of the main challenges with intermittent renewables like offshore wind is how to store the excess energy - hydrogen is an alternative to batteries.
Hydrogen would be manufactured using “low carbon” electricity, delivered via an existing substation at the site, to split water into its component parts.
It would then be stored in an underground cavern 1.8 kilometres down in a layer of rock salt, previously used to store natural gas.
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Residents at an event at Aldbrough on Thursday were told it would be the “first power station at this scale in the UK and pretty much the world”.
Attendees were able to see what the site will look like from any chosen viewpoint nearby using an interactive tool.
Some were dismayed by its size and concerned by creeping industrialisation of the coastline - it will have a 30m high stack and the turbine will be 14m high.
One resident said it will “look like a chemical factory” and was a “lot bigger” than she’d anticipated.
Natural gas burns, but hydrogen explodes.
This is a mistake.
Pump water uphill instead.
Gas can explode too, it’s just we’re so used to it that the danger is no longer immediately apparent to the average person. Sure hydrogen has it’s risks, but you’re not going to get the same output from letting a load of water run down a hill.