Repowering the Black Country Phase 2 Cluster Plan

The Black Country is one of seven strategic industrial clusters across the UK being supported by BEIS and Innovate UK to decarbonise by 2040\. By 2030, without radical action, Black Country industry will be responsible for 2.3MtCO2 emissions a year, from an industrial base of more than 3000 energy-intense businesses, many still engaged in the region's traditional metal processing operations.

This project aims to reduce these emissions to zero by 2030 through a co-ordinated programme of transformational projects focused around a new type of industrial estate: the zero carbon hub.

Zero carbon hubs will be based around anchor industrial processes, strategically-selected to match Black Country skills and strengths (for example aluminium reprocessing). Each hub will contain a mix of businesses carefully selected to complement each other by thinking about their energy and waste flows. For example, where metal manufacturing results in significant quantities of waste heat, this might be used to generate steam for use in food processing or urban agriculture, or supplied to neighbouring housing or offices via district heating schemes.

Each hub will have its own energy centre, designed to work alongside a decarbonised national electricity grid to supply Black Country industry with clean power and heat at globally-competitive costs. Many of these energy centres will be built around Black Country-manufactured new energy technologies converting commercial waste into heat, electricity and hydrogen.

The project will work with other industrial clusters around the UK coast to build new supply chains and markets for hydrogen and carbon. We will work with the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick and with the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) in Edinburgh to deploy the latest energy technologies and circular economy methods in the Black Country.

We anticipate developing four demonstration hubs during the two year period of the project and stimulating the deployment of a further 10-50 to achieve the cluster's zero carbon goal by 2030\. Innovate UK funding will be used alongside a small amount of economic development funding to stimulate over £1bn of commercial investment in the region.