Chemicals Park

A view from Paull towards the storage tanks of the Saltend Chemical Park . BP Chemicals Ltd established Saltend Chemicals Park in 2009. Today a range of organisations operate on the 370-acre site, sharing an established infrastructure and extensive provision of services, feedstocks and utilities.

In the background is the Salt End cogeneration plant which was commissioned in 2000 by Entergy an American power generator. It was later sold to Calpine Corporation, also an American power generator, in August 2001 for £562 million. In July 2005, Salt End was sold to International Power and Mitsui (70:30 share) for £500 million. It was later owned and operated by GDF SUEZ Energy UK-Turkey, and is now operated by Triton Power.

Triton Power is part of the H2H (Hydrogen to Humber) decarbonisation project which in March 2021 won joint funding through ISCF (Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund) from Innovate UK to carry out FEED studies to convert the Saltend CHP to burn a 30% blend of Blue Hydrogen. Blue Hydrogen is hydrogen obtained through reforming natural gas with the CO2 captured and stored in subsea caverns.

The site was built by Mitsubishi (MHI) and Raytheon. The station is run on gas using single shaft 3 x Mitsubishi 701F gas Turbines machines with Alstom 400 MWe generators. The station has a total output of 1200 MW; of that 100 MW is allocated to supply BP Chemicals. Each gas turbine has a Babcock Borsig Power (BBP) heat recovery steam generator, which all lead to one steam turbine per unit (single shaft machine means Gas turbine and Steam Turbine are on the same shaft). The waste steam at the rate of about 120 tonnes/hr is sold to BP Chemicals to use in their process. This makes Saltend one of the most efficient power stations in the UK.