Ireland’s First Green Hydrogen Facility Costing €120 Million

Green energy company EI-H2 has announced plans for the first Green Hydrogen facility in Ireland.

The company will seek planning permission for a 50-megawatt electrolysis plant in Aghada, County Cork., which will remove 63,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually from Irish industry and power generation.

When completed it will be the largest of its kind worldwide, over it will bring over 85 full-time ‘direct and indirect’ jobs. It will cost €120 million on the construction and grid connection and is to be completed by the end of 2023.

Cork’s lower harbour will be the first site, this is due to its strategic location and it will be able to assist commercial customers who are struggling to reduce their carbon output. The site will aim to provide 20 tonnes of green, safe hydrogen per day to the commercial market, this green hydrogen can also be added safely to existing natural gas supplies to again help companies, energy producers etc keep their carbon emissions down.

Founder of Green Hydrogen Company EI-H2

Pearse Flynn, a Cork businessman and owner of EI-H2, has said, “Ireland is starting to take leadership in tackling climate change. The production of hydrogen from excess wind capacity will play a significant role in Ireland’s decarbonisation, given that Ireland could be generating 8 GW of offshore wind by 2030. There inevitably will be ‘curtailed’ energy that will go to waste unless we find ways of using it.”

Pearse Flynn has also previously invested into Ireland’s track to greener energy, last year he donated €10 million into a green energy project, acquiring Crosshaven Boatyard as a headquarters of his venture Green Rebel Marine, to service the future needs of offshore wind farms.

Speaking on this Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney TD said, “Ireland faces a challenge to decarbonise over the next decade, and a plan like that being put forward by EI-H2 would go some way towards helping us achieve what might now seem like impossible targets. Every business in Ireland should be looking at ways to decarbonise, starting with the largest, and working our way through our entire economy.

The production of green hydrogen using surplus wind energy is just one way that we can help put Ireland on a solid environmental footing, and show global leadership in energy projects. I would like to wish Pearse Flynn and the team at EI-H2 every success as they develop this, and other projects, in this space in the years to come.”