Building material company Hanson UK has secured nearly £400,000 ($451,760) in funding to test the feasibility of using low-carbon hydrogen as an alternative heat source at the company’s asphalt plants.
The investment comes through the £26 million ($29,36 million) Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator program of the UK’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The funding has been awarded to the Bay Hydrogen Hub – Hydrogen4Hanson project, which will work on nuclear hydrogen production and investigate technologies to deliver the hydrogen to industrial facilities.
The project will support the development of a hydrogen hub at EDF’s Heysham nuclear power site in Lancashire, as Hanson is looking to decarbonize multiple sites in the UK.
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“The use of hydrogen as a fuel at asphalt sites has not yet been physically demonstrated anywhere in the world, so we are delighted to once again be leading the way with new technologies that have the potential to significantly cut carbon emissions across our industry,” said Marian Garfield, Hanson UK sustainability director. The project is an example of Hanson’s commitment to meeting their 2050 net-zero carbon goals, she also said.
Hanson UK, which is a leading supplier of heavy building materials in the construction sector, hopes the project will be a crucial step toward the decarbonization of both the asphalt and cement industries and can be upscaled to over 250 UK sites.
The Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator program is funded through the BEIS Net Zero Innovation Portfolio and provides financing to innovation projects that, according to their website, can “demonstrate end-to-end industrial fuel switching to hydrogen.”
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