A Scottish green hydrogen plant is still awaiting its construction to start four years after the plans were revealed
HY2GO’s Scottish green hydrogen plant, originally revealed in November 2020, is still awaiting its construction start in Lanarkshire nearly four years on.
The plans show that the plant should cost £45m and was originally intended to produce hydrogen for the buses ferrying delegates around at COP26.
Major doubts about the project
As well as a production hub for hydrogen, the plant is intended to have a solar and wind farm to power the plant.
The project is being run by managing director Simon Coakley, the son of Tom Coakley, a Conservative donor who was caught up in a debt scandal in the Lanarkshire area in 2015, resulting in him being banned as a company director for seven years.
To add further doubt to the project being started soon, Companies House accounts show that HY2GO has just two employees, in spite of the >£10m in shareholder funds.
“Hydrogen schemes are expensive”
Simon Coakley said: “There have been delays but we still fully intend to go ahead with the hydrogen plant and I hope that construction work can begin next year.” Simon’s biography on the HY2GO website states that he is “rejuvenating the family’s interest in the renewable energy sector”.
Tom Baxter, former BP chemical engineer and visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde, said: “It is no surprise to me that this project has not progressed. These hydrogen schemes are expensive compared to electrification and it is unclear whether they will ever be economically viable.
“There is nothing new or wrong in big business promoting it but most projects will be highly reliant on grant funding from government.
“Hydrogen will have industrial applications in the future but the groupings promoting it tend to do so in near isolation without fully presenting other options. In this isolated context, it is easy for politicians to be seduced.”
If the project ever takes off, it will demonstrate Scotland’s commitment to green hydrogen. But four years on, and with the last news update on the HY2GO website being in October of 2021, it remains to be seen whether the project will remain viable.
