The purpose of this colossal solar park is to produce green hydrogen and turn it into Electro-Sustainable Aviation Fuel (eSAF) – for export – to “decarbonise air travel” in Europe. The hydrogen and eSAF plant itself will cover 73 hectares and will include electrolyser blocks, Fischer-Tropsch and carbon-capture units, pressurised hydrogen and CO₂ storage, bulk fuel and eSAF storage, gas flares, and a dedicated on-site fire station. There is also still the matter of a “third-party biomass boiler”, about which the scoping report provides no meaningful information. It will need to truck in and burn around a thousand tonnes of dry woodchips or agricultural waste a day to sustain the plant’s operations. The scoping report lists fires, explosions and asphyxiant releases among the risks of infrastructure failure, and notes that the chemical-handling side is likely to trigger classification as a Major Hazard Installation (MHI). The plant is also expected to require an Atmospheric Emissions Licence. The Battery Energy Storage System will stretch over roughly 8 hectares – or about eleven rugby fields. The Phelan Green Group’s proposed project in Hopefield, in other words, is a mega-industrial energy complex.
