New Delhi, Feb 8 : EET Hydrogen has announced that it has a statement of principles with the UK government's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for its flagship HPP1 low-carbon hydrogen plant. The construction work is expected to begin later this year.

The signing of the statement of principles marks an agreement milestone between EET Hydrogen and the UK Government on key aspects of negotiations to date. EET Hydrogen and the UK government will now enter final negotiations, with the aim of making a final decision later this year.

HPP1 will have an initial production capacity of 350MW and will capture around 600,000 tonnes of CO2 a year - the equivalent to taking around 250,000 cars off the road.

This represents a major milestone for the UK hydrogen industry, for the HyNet Cluster and for EET Hydrogen's progress towards its goal of developing 4GW of low carbon hydrogen by 2030.

The hydrogen will be provided to industrial businesses across the North West of England to decarbonise their operations, protecting jobs and driving economic growth. The project is the cornerstone of the HyNet cluster and is essential for the cluster to commence construction later this year.

Lord Callanan, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, said: 'We have already halved our emissions from 1990 levels, and hydrogen will play a vital role in the UK's journey towards net zero by providing businesses large and small with cleaner energy in the future.

'By moving into final negotiations with the Ellesmere project, we are working to deliver our ambition of up to 10GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity, in an industry expected to support up to 12,000 jobs by 2030.'

Tony Fountain, Managing Partner of EET, said: 'Today's statement of principles is a great outcome for both EET and the UK. Scaling hydrogen capacity is essential to decarbonising heavy industries. This is an important step in our ambitious decarbonisation plan to transform our business and the North West. We appreciate the Government's partnership which will contribute to protecting skilled jobs in the region and ensuring our industries remain competitive.'

Joe Seifert, CEO of EET Hydrogen, said: 'This is a critical milestone for EET Hydrogen and the hydrogen sector in the UK. We are very proud to be leading the way and look forward to starting construction later this year.'

/IANS