A new plan to secure Aberdeen’s place as a centre of excellence in the hydrogen technology centre has been revealed at All-Energy 2013 today.
Aberdeen City Council leader Barney Crockett lauched the new framework which aims to establish a hydrogen economy in the region.
“Aberdeen is world-famous for its expertise in offshore oil and gas production. Those skills are finding root in offshore renewables,” said Crockett.
“We’re now adding the third component – a hydrogen economy. It’s a message we will be sending out far and wide, and all will be welcome to come to play a part.
“The launch of this strategy framework is an extremely important step. This is Aberdeen laying out its aspirations and intentions for creating a hydrogen economy in Aberdeen. It is a crucial step towards Aberdeen becoming a world-leading, smart energy city. I firmly believe this document, combined with our exciting ongoing hydrogen demonstration projects will stimulate further innovative hydrogen technology initiatives and attract even more high-level investment to this city.”
The strategy aims to create a platform for the city to step from next year’s £20million Aberdeen Hydrogen Bus project to more ambitious ventures and accelerate the renewable energy sector in the city, making use of Aberdeen’s existing experience in energy production.
City leaders are also targeting entrepreneurs to establish new and novel demonstration applications in hydrogen technology in Aberdeen, including ways of using it in the heating grid.
The framework has been developed in parallel with a European strategy for a hydrogen transport economy for the North Sea Region (HyTrEc), working in partnership with German, Belgian, Swedish, Norwegian, and UK experts.
“Hydrogen offers exciting possibilities because it can be used to store energy from renewable sources, for use in all sorts of applications, including transport, heating and power supply,” said HyTrEc project manager Rachel Sharp.
“Through the HyTrEc project we are learning from our European neighbours and putting all our expertise together to help our vision for a hydrogen economy become a reality.”
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