Press Release: BIG HIT Creates Exemplar ‘Hydrogen Islands’ Energy System for Orkney
BIG HIT project partners and suppliers with hydrogen mobile storage unit, Orkney Islands Council hydrogen powered vans and local ferry, Kirkwall Pier (Credit Colin Keldie)
The official opening of the pioneering Building Innovative Green Hydrogen Systems in an Isolated Territory (BIG HIT) project took place in Kirkwall, Orkney on Tuesday 15th May 2018, bringing together communities, industry, and politicians who are all working together to deploy one of Europe’s leading energy systems.
The five-year BIG HIT project, involving 12 participants based across six EU countries funded by the EU FCH JU, is a major first step towards creating a genuine hydrogen territory in the Orkney Islands. BIG HIT has been widely recognised as the leading project of its kind in Europe. The Orkney Islands of Scotland were chosen for this development because of the need to store excess renewable energy and utilise the stored energy locally for transport and heat.
BIG HIT provides a blue print for renewable hydrogen deployment for island systems and new hydrogen territories. This will benefit communities and businesses who want to use more locally generated renewable energy.
As part of the pioneering BIG HIT project the Orkney Islands Council has taken a leading role by purchasing five electric vans, which have each been fitted with a BIG HIT-funded hydrogen fuel cell, giving them twice their normal operational range.
Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse said:
“We are very supportive of the BIG HIT initiative because it will help alleviate grid constraints in the Orkney Islands by enabling excess renewable energy generated locally, but what cannot be transmitted to the mainland to be stored and used to produce hydrogen. As a versatile and low carbon energy solution, hydrogen therefore has the great potential to play an important role in transport, heating, and industry.
“This innovative project will add to our growing understanding of the potential role of hydrogen in Scotland’s future energy system, as identified in Scotland’s Energy Strategy which I published in December.
“The Scottish Government has already supported a number of world-leading hydrogen demonstration projects, such as; the Orkney Surf‘n’Turf project; and the introduction of zero emission hydrogen buses and hydrogen refuelling stations in Aberdeen.”
Orkney Islands Council Leader James Stockan said:
“Orkney is at the heart of the BIG HIT project, which aims to demonstrate how hydrogen produced locally using renewable energy can be used sustainably in ways which benefit islands and other remote communities. Our community is the ideal test bed for this important initiative. The Council has ambitions to become carbon neutral and so it was great to see the Council’s new zero-emission vans – the first vehicles to have a ‘fill-up’ of Orkney-produced hydrogen – at the launch event, providing clear evidence that BIG HIT is up and running.”
Mark Hull, Head of Innovation for Community Energy Scotland, added:
“The launch of this project is the hard earned result of a truly unique partnership of technical, public and local community partners coming together. We are looking forward to seeing it not only lead the way internationally, but also create real benefit to the local community, especially in Shapinsay and Eday.”
Neil Kermode, Managing Director of the European Marine Energy Centre said:
“By piloting the generation of hydrogen from renewable energy sources, BIG HIT is helping avoid grid shortcomings, while supporting further development of renewable energy projects in Orkney. It is breaking through the barriers to delivering renewable transport and heat, opening up new markets around the world.”
The Orkney Islands have over 50 MW of installed wind, wave and tidal capacity generating over 46 GWhr per year of renewable power, and therefore Orkney has been a net exporter of electricity since 2013. Energy used to produce the hydrogen for BIG HIT is provided by the community-owned wind turbines on the Orkney islands of Shapinsay and Eday.
At present the Shapinsay and Eday wind turbines are often ‘curtailed’, losing on average of more than 30% of their annual output, limited by grid capacity restrictions in Orkney. This wasted energy from the locally owned Shapinsay wind turbine will be used by the BIG HIT project to produce renewable hydrogen using a 1 MW PEM electrolyser supplied by ITM Power. Storing excess renewable energy as renewable hydrogen in this way increases the utilisation of the installed wind capacity without the need to reinforce the grid connection.
