Net Zero Belfast

Northern Ireland is heavily reliant on fossil fuels costing £9bn p.a. but with huge potential to harness renewables due to its location / geography. The Net Zero Belfast project will assess the potential to conduct green hydrogen (GH) and e fuel testing in the Belfast Innovation District (BID), the results of which will provide assurance on performance, suitability and safety to enable scaling and adoption of GH in NI and the UK. This GH and e fuel capability and capacity could help inform regulation, policy, standards and enable UK scaling to support net zero ambitions by providing accurate measurement of performance and safety. This would give confidence to consumers and society to encourage GH and e fuel adoption. BID's location, unique ownership (single ultimate landowner Belfast Harbour Commissioners) and components (industry, academia, City Deal investment, digital infrastructure, tech capability and skills) make it a perfect place for demonstrating at scale, and across numerous sectors, the use cases for GH and e fuels. BID is home to producers and potential users of GH and e fuels. Unlocking the use cases will accelerate net zero ambitions across NI and potentially the UK.

The feasibility will focus on solutions to the non-technical systemic barriers currently preventing deployment of GH and e fuels. This in turn would support delivery of social, environmental and economic benefits providing all our citizens with a cleaner, sustainable, affordable and resilient green energy supply. By growing our burgeoning greentech cluster and supporting the development of a low carbon manufacturing base NI would attract more investment and capital having been established as an innovative net zero hub.