PowerHouse Energy Group has announced that its development partner, Waste2Tricity Limited (W2T), has concluded negotiations and has signed an agreement with Peel Environmental for a 124-year lease of a plot on the 54-acre Protos energy hub site, and important milestone in its plan to build a waste plastic to hydrogen and power facility.
This is expected to be the first full scale commercial site for PowerHouse’s proprietary hydrogen from waste DMG technology, an important step in PowerHouse Energy’s commercialisation strategy.
PowerHouse Energy and W2T will now seek to conclude the arrangements for the sale and license of the DMG technology for this site as well as W2T completing the power purchase agreement and a plastic feedstock supply necessary to finalise its funding.
The Protos site, located near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, is being developed by Peel Environmental, part of Peel L&P and a subsidiary of the Peel Group, one of Britain’s leading infrastructure, transport and real estate companies.
The £700 million energy hub clusters complementary businesses, including energy intensive industries, associated supply chain and energy generation.
David Ryan, CEO of PowerHouse Energy, said: “This is a significant strategic development for PowerHouse Energy as our development and operational partners W2T and Peel both share the vision for hydrogen in the North West.”
“We look forward to concluding our own contractual arrangements shortly which together with the plastic feed and energy use agreements currently being progressed by our partners are all stepping stones to bringing the development to a financial close.”
“We believe the Protos site to be an ideal location to showcase our DMG technology in action on a fully commercial basis and demonstrate the considerable value this technology delivers, paving the way for other contracts in the pipeline to come to fruition.”
Myles Kitcher, Managing Director of Peel Environmental, said: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with W2T and PowerHouse Energy to deliver this UK first waste to hydrogen project.”
“This project sums up the vision for Protos – a closed loop solutions where innovative technologies are used to create value from waste and provide low carbon energy sources.”
“Not only will this help tackle the problem of waste plastics, it will provide a local source of hydrogen which could be used as a clean and low cost fuel for buses and HGV’s across the region. We see this as the first of many opportunities to roll out the technology across other Peel sites in the UK.”
John Hall, Chairman of Waste2Tricity, said: “We are extremely pleased to be developing this site using the DMG technology, we believe it will be the first of many in the UK and elsewhere globally.”
“The Protos site is ideally located in the North West, with discussions underway with initial suppliers of unrecyclable plastic feedstock including from other potential tenants within the park.”
“We look forward to progressing to build this facility with PowerHouse Energy and Peel and the bright future ahead for responsible energy recovery.”