HyNet welcomes Industry Minister to North West on first official visit

A cluster of industry planning to build new infrastructure to remove greenhouse gases from their manufacturing process yesterday/today welcomed the new Industry Minister - Sarah Jones MP - on her first official visit to the site.

HyNet will unlock a route for industry to produce low carbon products, without releasing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The project partners will build the infrastructure to take away and permanently store carbon dioxide (CO₂) from industry with unavoidable emissions, as well as the facilities to produce, transport and store low carbon hydrogen which can be used instead of the fossil fuel, natural gas.

The visit highlighted the government's commitment to unlocking economic growth and energy security through the building of low carbon infrastructure.

During her visit, Minister Jones toured two of HyNet’s partners; Encirc near Ellesmere Port, the producer of 40% of the UK’s glass containers, and Viridor’s Energy Recovery Facility in Runcorn, one of the largest energy recovery facilities in Europe.  At Encirc, Minister Jones saw glass being shaped into wine bottles which are then distributed across the UK. HyNet will enable Encirc to switch to low carbon hydrogen, creating 200 jobs.  In Runcorn, Viridor demonstrated its plan to capture nearly 900,000 tonnes of CO₂ every year, which will be transported and stored beneath Liverpool Bay.

HyNet will reduce CO₂ emissions by 10 million tonnes, the same as removing four million cars from the roads. This will not only help in achieving net-zero emissions but also create 6000 new industrial construction jobs and unlock £5 billion of private sector investment this year to support long-term economic growth in the region​.

Minister for State at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Sarah Jones said:

“Our industrial heartlands, including here in the North West, must be at the heart of the new government’s industrial strategy.

“How we manage to decarbonise these industries whilst not just protecting but growing the number of good jobs and opportunities for people, will determine our success. HyNet is unlocking billions of investment at the same time as creating good British jobs for generations to come.”

Chris Manson-Whitton, CEO of Progressive Energy which runs the HyNet Alliance added:

“We were delighted to host Minister Jones at HyNet to show her how the North West and North Wales are creating economic opportunities from industries journey to net zero carbon dioxide emissions.”

Olivia Powis, UK Director at the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, said:

“CCUS is vital for decarbonising our industrial heartlands and is projected to deliver not just new jobs but also protect those in existing carbon-intensive industries.

“The Minister’s ongoing commitment to delivering the first two carbon capture clusters – HyNet visited yesterday and the East Coast Cluster - is an important step to meeting the clean power by 2030 target and in building the world’s first large scale integrated CCUS clusters.”