Hydrogen Feasibility Study for Enfinium

Objectives

Enfinium is a leader in the energy-from-waste sector and operates four decarbonisation hubs that transform waste into electricity and recycle metals, with two more in development within the UK.

However, the electricity market is undergoing a period of massive transformation as it moves from a system dominated by large, centralised fossil-fuel base load stations to a more decentralised system with significant generation from intermittent renewable sources. In parallel, the journey to decarbonise the gas grid is just beginning and there is significant interest in the substitution of hydrogen for natural gas as a key means of achieving it.

Therefore, the production of hydrogen from waste rather than or as well as electricity offers several potential commercial opportunities:

• Export / sell the hydrogen to the national gas grid
• Sell the hydrogen directly to a local industrial user
• Store the hydrogen and then use it to generate electricity to exploit arbitrage / variability in electricity market pricing

Project

The study formed part of a wider assessment of the technical and commercial feasibility of hydrogen production developments at the customer energy-from-waste sites. Anthesis was commissioned to deliver the initial technical prefeasibility study, focussing on defining the core hydrogen generation technology and associated balance of the plant.

Enfinium set the following aims for the project:

• Establish the maximum quantity of hydrogen that can be generated on-site
• Identify the key limiting factors for hydrogen generation on-site
• Estimate the CAPEX and OPEX for hydrogen plants capable of producing this maximum quantity of hydroge on each site

Recognising that the maximum scenario was unlikely to reflect a project that would be developed in the short-medium term, Anthesis also produced a preliminary design for a demonstrator plant that would represent the likely first stage of hydrogen generation rollout.

Services

• Technological assessment of potential suppliers
• Development of concept design for deployment of hydrogen generation at five sites
• Development of concept design documentation including:
  • AACE Class 5 CAPEX cost estimate and OPEX estimate of equivalent accuracy
  • Report with findings and recommendations

Impacts

Electrolytic hydrogen generation was found to be technically feasible at all the sites, at varying scales. At all sites, town water was used as the water source for the electrolysis process and the electricity generated by the EfW as the power source.

The limiting factors at each site were mainly associated with available power generation, but also with surface area availability and long-term industrial demand for Hydrogen. In the short term, the limiting factor across all sites will be tangible hydrogen demand. Anthesis worked with a supplier of small-scale mobile refuelling unit to develop a demonstrator site that would be suitable for short-term development.

Anthesis identified the sites that appear best suited to hydrogen in the short term and prepared a feasibility study for a demonstrator plant to be rolled out as the first step.

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