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Centrica has awarded a contract to the engineering firm Wood to redesign the Rough gas storage facility to store hydrogen.
The front-end engineering design (FEED) contract covers new pipelines, a new unmanned installation and onshore injection facilities at the Easington gas terminal.
Centrica reopened the site, which consists of a partially depleted gas field in the North Sea, in response to the energy crisis in October 2022. The company had closed the reservoir five years earlier in 2017 after finding faults with the wells used for injections and withdrawals, which it concluded had made it uneconomic to continue operating. A year ago, Centrica received clearance from Ofgem to continue running the facility until 2030.
In July 2021, Centrica revealed plans to spend £1.6 billion redeveloping the site to store hydrogen, and in March of this year, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee urged the government to make a decision on whether to provide financial support for the project by the end of 2024.
Centrica says Rough could become the world’s largest hydrogen storage facility, with enough capacity to meet half of the UK’s total needs.
Martin Scargill, managing director of Centrica Energy Storage, said: “We have huge ambitions for the future of Rough and our partnership with Wood is an important stepping-stone on the path to realising those ambitions.
“We are ready to invest in futureproofing this critical asset subject to agreeing a regulatory support model that would underpin gas storage investment in the UK.”
Steve Nicol, executive president for operations at Wood, said: “We are proud to be a part of this innovative redevelopment project, critical to both the UK’s long-term energy security and its industrial decarbonisation commitments.
“Hydrogen, alongside offshore wind and carbon capture and storage is vital to the UK’s net zero ambition and will be key to decarbonising industries, transport and power.”
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