Wood will deliver a scope for an undisclosed energy company in Southern Europe that will assess the feasibility of converting 125 kilometres of natural gas pipelines for hydrogen transportation along the Mediterranean coastline.
The feasibility study will advance the energy company’s decarbonisation goals and its ambitions to become a hydrogen enabler — linking European production to demand.
Wood President of Decarbonisation Dan Carter stated that the European Hydrogen Backbone (EHB) initiative has underlined the critical role hydrogen and its associated infrastructure will play in the transition to carbon neutrality.
The EHB initiative consists of a group of 33 energy infrastructure operators, united through a shared vision of a climate-neutral Europe enabled by a thriving renewable and low-carbon hydrogen market.
“The project is another step forward in realising the backbone vision, which aims to repurpose approximately 32,000 kilometres of natural gas transmission pipeline by 2040,” said Carter.
Today, over 4,300 kilometers already exists for hydrogen transportation with over 90 per cent located in Europe and North America. According to Rystad Energy there are about 91 planned pipeline projects in the world, totalling 30,300 kilometres and due to come online by around 2035.
Wood is also providing front-end engineering design (FEED) for UK’s first hydrogen distribution pipeline infrastructure system — the HyNet project.