Public Funding for DFDS Logistics Limited

**The NI/GB Green Shipping Corridor Project** This project sets out to investigate the feasibility of establishing an 'NI/GB Green Shipping Corridor' between Northern Ireland (Larne) and the North West of England (Liverpool, Fleetwood or Heysham) using a ro-ro freight ferry design optimised for the carriage of unaccompanied trailers and powered by hydrogen reformed onboard from green methanol delivered in road mobile ISO tank containers. The green methanol would be synthesised in the Port of Larne from green H2 and CO2 as part of the Ballylumford Power-to-X Project, see description below. The main innovation in the project is to capture CO2 from the onboard reformer and return it to the methanol synthesis plant in the same tank containers that delivered the methanol, thereby setting up a circular CO2 economy that avoids the inevitable future supply constraint of green CO2\. The port based flexible green methanol plant will use otherwise curtailed wind power to drive a PEM electrolyser that feeds green hydrogen to a catalytic reactor. The NI/GB Green Shipping Corridor would have 'true-zero' emissions, would not be reliant upon limited supplies of bio derived CO2 or direct air captured CO2 and would not need any carbon offsetting to meet net zero objectives. The BEIS funded, 'Ballylumford Power-to-X Project' concluded that the largest and fastest route to market for green hydrogen in Northern Ireland is currently e-methanol synthesis for supply as a fossil fuel substitute in the ro-ro freight ferry sector. The proposed 150MWe electrolyser installation would provide sufficient controllable electrical load to balance a significant portion of the chronic and acute curtailment of windfarms being experienced in NI today and at the same time provide sufficient green hydrogen, carried in the form of e-methanol, to serve the needs of up to six zero emission ro-ro freight ferries operating on the NI/GB Green Shipping Corridor. The flexible green e-methanol plant can ramp production up and down to suit the H2 supply which in turn is variable according to wind speed. This avoids the need to store H2 and so reduces overall cost. The same e-methanol plant can also supply renewable liquid fuel (M100) to the HGV truck sector so that end-to-end logistics chains can be operated with net zero emission performance. Lead company B9 Energy Storage is joined by DFDS Seaways Immingham, DFDS Logistics, JG Maritime Solutions, Mutual Energy, Larne Harbour and Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre at Teesside University.