ROCKWOOL today (November 1) revealed in partnership with Marubeni Europower and Mott McDonald, the project hopes to demonstrate the viability of green hydrogen as an end-to-end fuel solution in industrial processes.

Backed by £400,000 ($461,750) in funding from the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP) under the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), through its Hydrogen Accelerator programme, green hydrogen will replace natural gas in the Bridgend factory’s combustion systems and curing ovens.

It is hoped the research into the clean energy carrier’s use and a viable on-site production solution will deliver a proof of concept for the approach for ROCKWOOL and other industrial sectors across the UK.

Rafael Rodriguez, Managing Director of ROCKWOOL, and Senior Vice-President of ROCKWOOL Group, hopes the use of green hydrogen will further decarbonise the company’s already “net negative” product.

“Action is needed now on climate change. We already produce a net negative product with data showing that over their lifetime, ROCKWOOL insulation products sold in 2022 will save over 100 times more carbon than was emitted during their production,” said Rodriguez. “However, we want to do more to reduce our operation impact. ROCKWOOL Group has set ambitious decarbonisation targets verified and approved by the Science Based Target initiative, and in line with this, we are looking forward to enhancing our own understanding about the potential for green hydrogen use in our business.”

Tomoki Nishino, President and CEO of Marubeni Eurpower, commented, “We are honoured to be part of this project to carry out a large scale decarbonisation study at the ROCKWOOL plant, contributing Marubeni’s experience in power generation and infrastructure development. I hope other industries can also benefit from our study and that this type of initiative spreads widely across South Wales Industrial Cluster, Wales, UK, and beyond.”

Claudio Tassistro, Energy General Manager at Mott MacDonald, added, “We are proud to be supporting this exciting study on the application of hydrogen in the real world. Our multidisciplinary team has worked on green hydrogen generation and storage projects across the world and will bring with it a wealth of knowledge, and technical and economic expertise. The development of green hydrogen production projects like this are critical to achieving our Net Zero ambitions and meeting the challenges posed by the climate crisis.”