AIM-listed EnergyPathways, an integrated energy transition company, has submitted a gas storage licence application to the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) for its planned MESH (Marram Energy Storage Hub) project. The gas storage licence application covers an offshore area in the UK Irish Sea that includes the Company's 100% owned Marram Gas Field.
The planned MESH development is a major new energy storage facility that is expected to provide a secure and dependable supply of natural gas and green hydrogen for the UK market for at least 20 years. Storage infrastructure of this type helps address commodity price volatility in the local market and in turn supports lower energy prices for consumers
MESH will be able to store a sufficient volume of energy to heat 2.2 million average UK homes over winter. MESH's underground geo-storage capacity is estimated will be ~50 billion cubic feet of gas, equivalent to the size of the Rough facility, which is currently the UK's largest gas storage facility.
A number of major tier one engineering and energy companies, interested in participating in EnergyPathways' MESH development have provided letters of support for our gas storage licence application. EnergyPathways will be progressing negotiations with these companies in the coming months.
The MESH facility has been designed as a fully decarbonised and electrified zero emission facility to be powered by the renewable wind farms of the UK Irish Sea region to avoid any GHG emissions from venting and flaring. The gas produced from MESH will also have a carbon footprint emissions intensity approximately one tenth of that of imported LNG.
In the longer term, MESH is designed to potentially harness the UK's excess wind power by producing and storing green hydrogen. With wind curtailments currently costing UK consumers over £1bn per year and set to increase to £5bn by 2035, MESH offers a major new Long Duration Energy Solution for the UK's expanding renewable wind sector.
MESH's high quality geo-storage reservoirs will have high deliverability rates, which make them well suited to meeting the UK's increasingly intermittent energy demand.
MESH, located only 11 miles from the Lancashire coast, is ideally located for energy storage, being surrounded by 7-8GW of existing and planned offshore wind power, near to late life reusable gas pipelines and infrastructure, and UK's leading CCS projects. MESH is well placed to supply energy to the UK's markets, being close to the high populated and industrial demand centres of North-West England. EnergyPathways has identified a number of opportunities to help bolster decarbonisation of industrial clusters and gas power generation through the region.
Ben Clube, CEO of EnergyPathways commented, 'We are delighted to have submitted our gas storage licence application to the NSTA. As part of this the Company has assembled a number of tier 1 energy and engineering companies that are interested in participating in the MESH project. In reaching this milestone for MESH, we are pleased to be bringing forward an energy transition project that strongly aligns with the UK government's energy policy and objectives. With the UK having some of the lowest levels of gas storage of the world's major economies, and it becoming increasingly dependent on LNG imports, we believe an expansion of the UK's gas storage capacity will be vital for a dependable and secure energy supply. In the event of being successful with this licence application, we will integrate it into our Marram Project development plan ahead of FID. We look forward to updating the market in due course.'
Source: EnergyPathways
