Enabling Net Zero: Progress on Decarbonising UK Industrial Clusters

The UK recognizes the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change. As such, the UK was the first major economy to establish a legally binding target of net zero emissions by 2050 and to halve its emissions between 1990 and 2022. Eliminating the other half of emissions will require successfully decarbonizing all sectors of the economy, including industry. Technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and low-carbon hydrogen are vital for the transition to net zero by 2050 and to enable the UK to decarbonize, not deindustrialize.

To foster scalable decarbonization solutions, UK Research and Innovation launched the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC) in 2019. Over the next five years, the IDC spent £210 million to support the UK government’s goals to deliver four low-carbon industrial clusters by 2030 and the world’s first net zero cluster by 2040. This funding advanced nine first-of-a-kind industrial decarbonization projects, laying the foundation for wide-scale rollout across the UK. These projects, once built, will provide critical shared transport and storage infrastructure for emitters seeking to decarbonize through CCS or low-carbon hydrogen.

Enabling Net Zero: Progress on Decarbonising UK Industrial Clusters highlights lessons learned from the development of the nine first-of-a-kind CCS and low-carbon hydrogen projects in the UK. 

Delivered by Guidehouse, the report incorporates insights from project developers and policymakers, and quantifies the potential economic and environmental impacts of realizing these industrial decarbonization projects. It provides practical insights for project developers, government stakeholders, and private interests aiming to develop low-carbon infrastructure projects in the UK or abroad. The report also offers recommendations for scaling technology, infrastructure, and market development, focusing on the need to:

1. Provide clear market signals to create sustainable CCS and low-carbon hydrogen markets
2. Address gaps in the UK government’s CCS and hydrogen business model to drive greater investor and developer certainty
3. Streamline permitting for infrastructure
4. Support within cluster coordination and collaboration across the value chain

Guidehouse was honored to serve as the author for this report and we thank the contributing organizations and teams who provided insight and value for UKRI and the UK government.

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