Peel NRE – Supporting & Accelerating Carbon Reduction Across the UK

Peel NRE, part of Peel L&P, is at the heart of the nation’s activity around clean growth and the circular economy – helping the UK achieve net zero by 2050 and supporting the regions in their actions to achieve climate emergency targets. We’ve been speaking to them about how they’re at the forefront of supporting carbon reduction across the UK…

Q. Your flagship Protos development will be at the heart of the new Net Zero North West Cluster, how will this help ambitious to ‘level up’ the region and support carbon reduction?

Protos is located in the industrial heartland of the North West. This area was the home of the first industrial revolution, and is now set to be the home of the next one: the green industrial revolution. The 54-hectare strategic energy and resource hub brings together large energy users with sources of low carbon electricity alongside sustainable technologies to manage waste. We are also leading the charge on new energy generation technologies such as hydrogen. The UK’s first waste plastic to hydrogen facility will be situated at Protos. Not only will this find a use for plastic that has reached the end of its life and is destined for landfill or export overseas, it will also produce hydrogen which can be used as a clean fuel in transport.

Keeping this innovation and industry in the North West will protect the high value jobs we have in the region and help to grow them by attracting new industry. Protos is one of the key projects within the Net Zero North West industrial cluster, with over £4 billion invested in the area and generate in excess of 33,000 jobs. Our hope is that investment in low carbon technologies in the North West will not only level up the region but make it a destination for businesses looking to reduce their carbon footprint and access a skilled workforce.

Q. Peel NRE is working on its first ever Plastic Park at the Protos development, and have called for major government investment in the technology, what is the scale of the problem with plastic waste and how can it be used in a way to benefit sustainability ambitions?

We are working on our first ever Plastic Park at Protos – currently less than one third of all plastic is currently recycled – the UK has limited recycling facilities and as a consequence has historically exported its plastic waste.

In the UK alone, we generate 4.9 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. This waste often ends up in landfill, dumped in oceans, or exported abroad. We only need to look at nature documentaries to see the impact this waste is having on the ecosystem.

The Plastic Park at Protos, part of a £165m investment in plastic processing infrastructure. This enhanced infrastructure will enable greater circularity, increased recycling rates, reduced landfill and reduced export of waste. Clustering together different plastic recycling technologies, it would be home to a Mixed Recycling Facility (MRF) processing dry mixed recyclable material including glass, paper, cans, cards collected by the Local Authority. The Plastic Recycling Facility (PRF) will have state of the art facilities to process both the materials from the MRF as well as directly delivered bales of mixed plastic coming from municipal, commercial, and industrial sources. Plastics would then be distributed to the various plastic reprocessors ranging from polymer recycling, plastic to liquid and PET recycling – the residual plastic unsuitable for processing would be blended to create a feedstock for chemical recycling and if unsuitable would be used as feedstock for the plastic to Hydrogen facility.

Going forward, our ambition is to have multiple Plastic Parks throughout the country which will process and reuse many types of plastic, preventing it from ending up in the environment, and converting it into useful materials and fuels. More than this, it will also reduce the exploitation of virgin fossil fuels.

Q. Where do you see the usage of hydrogen as being most effective at leading in decarbonisation efforts?

One of the benefits of hydrogen is how versatile it is as an energy source. For example, it can be used to support energy storage and in transportation. While it is often thought that hydrogen transportation competes with electric vehicles, the two technologies complement each other. Hydrogen works in situations where EVs don’t, like freight. Both technologies need to be supported if we are to reach Net Zero which is why Peel NRE is also deploying fast charging points across its sites, and working with other large scale landowners to do help them do the same. We are also at the early stages of developing a low carbon transport refuelling hub concept which would combine high powered EV charging and hydrogen refuelling.

Specifically at Protos, we are developing the UK’s first waste plastic to hydrogen facility. This will take plastic that has reached the end of its life, and turn it into hydrogen which can be used in sectors like transportation.

Hydrogen has a big role to play in decarbonising heat, which has previously been difficult. There are already trials in both domestic and industrial settings, blending up to 20% hydrogen in with natural gas. Hydrogen releases only water and energy when burned, and blending reduces carbon emissions without the need for new infrastructure.

Going further and using 100% hydrogen opens the door to significant carbon savings, especially in industrial settings where there is a heavy reliance on natural gas for high temperature operations. Think of glass, cement or brick manufacturers. In this sector, carbon emissions are high, and electrification isn’t feasible but switching to hydrogen fuel could help these companies reach Net Zero.  

Q. At your £5bn Liverpool Waters development Peel L&P is using an innovative low carbon heat network, how did you decide on this approach for the development?

Liverpool Waters has all the attributes we look for when deciding to install a district heating network. It is a large-scale development with planning permission for 9,000 residential units and thousands of square feet of commercial space. There will be a mixture of building types, from high rise apartment buildings to two storey townhouses, and also a mixture of tenures. It is ideal for showcasing our offering for different types of development. The opportunity to reuse the dock infrastructure as a heat reservoir for a large-scale water source heat pump is also very attractive, and presents a great opportunity to help Liverpool be a cleaner, greener place to live, work and spend leisure time.

Q. You recently launched a new renewable energy division – Peel NRE – what will be the main focus of the new division and are there any schemes in the works?

Peel NRE combines the skills of the already established Peel Environmental, Peel Energy and Peel Water teams under a new name and a strengthened focus on natural resources and energy development activity. The new department will help drive the nation’s clean growth agenda, support a circular economy and help achieve regional climate emergency targets.

We’re also developing a number of projects across our different specialisms including district heating, renewable energy (onshore wind and solar), materials and asset management, water and electric vehicle charging. We have plans to secure 300MW of additional renewable energy through wind and solar over the next five years including taking forward proposals for its Beaw Field and Mossy Hill wind farms on the Shetland Islands.

Our Ener-Vate business is leading the growth of low carbon district heating portfolio and the development of the Mersey Heat network to service up to 9,000 homes and 4 million square feet of commercial space at Peel L&P’s Liverpool Waters. Recent planning approval now means that we can build an energy centre in Liverpool to help run the network using water source heat pumps and thermal stores.

In other areas, we have consent for a facility to recycle waste construction and demolition waste into materials which will be used to build a multi-modal freight facility and distribution park at Port Salford and other construction sites across Greater Manchester. We are also exploring opportunities to develop a nationally significant rapid electric vehicle charging network to help provide the infrastructure needed to remove petrol and diesel cars from the UK’s roads by 2030.