A GRANT worth £1.5million has been agreed for what could be Dorset’s first hydrogen fuel processing facility at Canford Renewable Energy.

It will be the first time that the Low Carbon Dorset will have made a single payment over £500,000. The organisation works across both Dorset and BCP council areas and is administered by Dorset Council.

Its cabinet unanimously approved the grant on Tuesday.

Dorset councillors were told that the grant would go towards total project costs of just under £6m, some of which may be met by loan financing via the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership.

Canford Renewable Energy is expect to start investing in the project from October 2021, with spending on the elements relevant to the Low Carbon Dorset grant being completed by May 2022.

The grant will be paid over nine months and should be repaid to Dorset Council by the Ministry of Communities Housing and Local Government by August 2022.

Canford Renewable Energy currently operate several MegaWatts (MW) of landfill gas engines. Their application to Low Carbon Dorset involves the installation of a 5MW solar farm on a capped landfill site. Some of the output from this, along with some output from the landfill gas engines, will operate an electrolyser to make green hydrogen from water, among the first in southern England.

The expansion plans at the former landfill site at Canford Resource Park, if finally approved, would produce 150,000kg of hydrogen each year, enough to fuel the equivalent of 900,000 miles travelled by lorries.

A planning application for the site covers more than 11 hectares of land at the restored White’s Pitt landfill site off Magna Road.

If approved, the development would be permitted to remain on the green belt site for 40 years.

Should the scheme be approved by BCP planners, the firm said construction was expected to take eight weeks to complete.

“The temporary proposed development is fully reversible and would generate a very low level of activity during operations lifetime, due to its passive nature and one hydrogen gas collection each day and approximately two maintenance visits per month,” the statement said.