Irving’s Green Hydrogen Play In Ireland
FREDERICTON — Irving Oil has announced a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Simply Blue Group, an Irish “blue economy” developer.
Andy Carson, Irving Oil’s director of energy transition, said the MOU will see the two companies work on a series of studies to assess the potential of developing a renewable energy hub at Irving’s Whitegate refinery, located near Cork, Ireland.
“The premise of this work is trying to identify important opportunities to integrate the very significant offshore wind developments that the Simply Blue Group have in their plans for this decade around the coastline of Ireland,” said Carson.
Simply Blue Group is a “blue economy” company that works with the ocean by using floating wind farms and waves to create renewable energy. Its “offshore wind developments” are wind turbines built and developed off the coast of Ireland. Carson said they can be fixed to the seabed or can be constructed to float. Simply Blue Groups’ plan is to create a floating wind project located about 50 kilometres south of Cork, the city of their headquarters.
Having these wind turbines offshore allows the company to make them larger as they will not be visible from land.
The proposed development would integrate a “significant amount” of renewable into Irving’s Whitegate refinery. This renewable energy will be used to decarbonize Irving’s operations by creating green hydrogen. It will be used as the foundation for producing the next generation of ultra-low carbon transportation fuels for the Irish and broader European markets.
Irving acquired the Whitegate Refinery in 2016 and has been building its relationship with Simply Blue Group for the past few years.
“[We’ve] identified some very exciting areas of collaboration together and are excited to see what next steps we can potentially take.”
Carson said the refinery’s first area of focus is exploring the different ways of using renewable energy to produce green hydrogen.
“Green hydrogen will allow us to really substitute zero-carbon hydrogen into our refining operations, while also allowing us to basically turn down other sources of hydrogen that we currently have at the Whitegate refinery that are relatively more carbon-intensive.”
Green hydrogen is a more environmentally friendly source of energy that produces no emissions when it is created by renewable energy sources like wind. The outcome of using green hydrogen for the Whitegate operations will be reducing greenhouse gas emissions and working towards Irving’s 2030 decarbonization goal.
RELATED: Atlantic Canada Could Become A Global Green Hydrogen Hub
“Having a significant and scalable source of renewable energy matched with a significant and scalable source of green hydrogen production onshore allows us to consider a range of other new products that we believe will be in high demand in the European market over the coming decades,” Carson said.
These products can include sustainable aviation fuel or other transportation products.
Carson said while Irving has made some important initial steps in the Canadian market they need to extend this same focus into their European operations.
“That initial focus on bringing a green- or low-carbon hydrogen into our refining operations in Ireland continues that theme of operational decarbonization in our European operations.”
Jessica Saulnier is a Huddle intern based in Fredericton. Send her your story tips: [email protected].