Olivia Kelleher
Green energy company - EI-H2 - has announced plans for Ireland’s first Green Hydrogen facility.
The new company intends to seek planning permission for a 50MW electrolysis plant in Aghada, County Cork, which when operational will remove 63,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually from Irish industry and power generation.
Upon completion, the site will be one of the biggest green energy facilities of its kind in the world.
85 full-time direct and indirect jobs will be created, and it is hoped EI-H2 Aghada will be operational before the end of 2023.
The cost of construction and connection to the electricity grid is expected to be in the region of €120m.
EI-H2 chose Cork’s Lower Harbour for its first site given its strategic location.
The facility is designed to assist commercial customers struggling to reduce their carbon output, who will increasingly need environmentally-sound and sustainable energy alternatives.
Surplus electricity
The technology being planned for the Aghada site allows for surplus electricity from renewable generation, particularly offshore wind, to be utilised in a process of electrolysis to break down water into its component elements of hydrogen and oxygen.
The Aghada site will aim to provide over 20 tonnes of green, safe hydrogen per day to the commercial market.
The green hydrogen produced at the plant can be safely added to existing natural gas supplies, helping high volume energy producers to reduce their carbon emissions.
EI-H2 is owned by Cork businessman, Pearse Flynn, who says that Ireland is starting to take leadership in tackling climate change.
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, has welcomed the development saying: “Ireland faces a challenge to decarbonise over the next decade, and a plan like that being put forward by EI-H2 would go some way towards helping us achieve what might now seem like impossible targets.
“Every business in Ireland should be looking at ways to decarbonise, starting with the largest, and working our way through our entire economy.”
Coveney said the production of green hydrogen using surplus wind energy is just one way that they can help put Ireland on a solid environmental footing, and show "global leadership in energy projects.”
