House of Commons North West Industrial Decarbonisation Briefing
Together with NWBLT member, EET Fuels, and our strategic partner, Net Zero North West, we were delighted to hold an event in the House of Commons to raise awareness of the importance of the North West Cluster Plan.
The North West’s industrial decarbonisation plans are centred on the ambitious North West Cluster Plan, which aims to establish the region as the UK’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040. This plan involves a £30 billion pipeline of investable projects, with the potential for £207 billion in total investments. Key strategies include the deployment of low-carbon technologies such as hydrogen production and carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS). By fostering collaboration between businesses, academia, and regional leaders, the plan aims to significantly reduce industrial emissions, create high-value jobs, and drive economic growth.
Benefits of this plan will be felt more widely than the specific location of these investable projects – not least through the opportunities for our people, with over 660,000 jobs protected or created in the long term.
Our host Patrick Hurley MP emphasised that in order to achieve this ambition, we need to continue to collaborate; with businesses, regional leaders, academia, and Government working hand in hand. He reflected that must also continue to engage with our communities, to ensure that they are aware of the benefits, and the opportunities, and not assume that these are self-evident.
We were therefore delighted to see that the Comprehensive Spending Review recognised the important role that Carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) clusters play in helping the UK achieve energy security and clean power.
NWBLT has long championed the benefits of the HyNet project for the region and so we welcome confirmation that the government is providing increased backing to UK CCUS by allocating £9.4 billion in capital budgets over the SR period. This will maximise deployment to fill the storage capacity of the HyNet Cluster and East Coast Cluster.