New facilities will build resilience into UK’s energy systems.
Costain, the infrastructure solutions company, has been chosen by EnergyPathways PLC (EPP) to study onshore location sites for EPP’s flagship integrated energy storage and decarbonisation project.
Marram Energy Storage Hub (MESH) is expected to be the UK’s largest integrated energy storage facility, planned to be approximately 15km off the coast of Blackpool. It is designed to support the UK government’s energy strategy for transitioning to clean power by providing long-duration energy storage solutions, combining natural gas, hydrogen, and compressed air technologies.
Costain’s front-end engineering and design experts will initially compare possible locations for the onshore process facilities and associated infrastructure. The study will assess the impact of location on connectivity to the gas and electricity networks, review the impact of site selection on construction cost and schedule, and consider the opportunities and risks in reuse of existing infrastructure.
The planned MESH onshore facilities will support large-scale natural gas storage and production, compressed air Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES), hydrogen storage, clean hydrogen production, clean ammonia and graphite production, and flexible clean power generation.
Grant Johnson, technical director at Costain, commented: “MESH is an ambitious, exciting project that will enhance the UK’s energy resilience, and enable more clean energy generation through large-scale energy storage.
“We know just how important it is to make robust choices at the early stages of a project, and we are looking forward to helping EPP with site selection, using our experience in delivering energy storage infrastructure to inform decision-making on aspects such as constructability and sustainability.”
Ben Clube, CEO at EnergyPathways said: “We are delighted to have entered into this engagement with Costain, a tier 1 UK-headquartered infrastructure company with extensive engineering knowledge and experience of the North-West region.
“Costain’s expertise will be invaluable in optimising the location for the MESH onshore facilities. Costain also brings relevant experience across several important aspects of the MESH project, including salt cavern development and in emerging technologies in the context of the UK government energy policy settings.
“This engagement continues the selection by EnergyPathways of world-class strategic partners with the expertise and experience to deliver a large-scale low-carbon integrated energy solution of national significance.”
Once operational, MESH will enable natural gas storage in the depleted Marram reservoir, with subsequent development to include Hybrid Compressed Air Energy Storage (H-CAES), which will store energy from offshore wind in the region by compressing air into adjacent salt caverns. The salt caverns will also be used to store green hydrogen, either derived as part of a decarbonised H‑CAES process or supplied via Project Union, the National Gas initiative that plans to repurpose and extend parts of the existing 5,000-mile gas transmission network to connect hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and industrial consumers.
Costain has decades of experience in designing and delivering complex gas storage infrastructure, working across the full project lifecycle, from concept, investment support, project execution planning, front end design, and planning development, to consent, project delivery, and asset and operational support.
For more information, please visit Costain's website.