BP has scrapped multibillion-pound plans to produce low-carbon hydrogen on Teesside after clashing with a rival project to build a vast data centre at the former Redcar steelworks site. <\/p>\n
The oil giant was seeking permission from the government for its \u201cH2Teesside\u201d project, which would have processed natural gas to make clean-burning hydrogen and captured the resulting carbon emissions. BP wanted powers to compulsorily purchase land at the Teesworks site.<\/p>\n
However, the owners of the site, where steelmaking ceased in 2015, have backed rival plans to develop what could be one of the world\u2019s biggest artificial intelligence data centres on the land. These plans gained permission from Redcar and Cleveland council in August, and would use the same patch of land earmarked by BP.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Google in talks to build giant Teesside datacentre<\/a><\/p>\n According to planning documents, the first phase of BP\u2019s development would have cost \u00a32.3 billion and a second phase \u00a32.2 billion.<\/p>\n Lord (Ben) Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, is championing the data centre plans. which he has claimed could be four times larger than the biggest data centre in America and could be at the heart of up to \u00a3100 billion of investment in AI on Teesside.<\/p>\n BP withdrew its application on Monday, citing \u201cmaterial changes in circumstances on the Teesworks site, including a planning application being granted locally for a data centre on the same piece of land\u201d.<\/p>\n It said it maintained that \u201ca solution which enabled co-existence of both [H2Teesside] and the proposed data centre on the Teesworks estate could have been identified\u201d, but that \u201ctwo proposals are incompatible on the same piece of land\u201d.<\/p>\n BP said it was \u201cmindful that central and local government will need to consider competing priorities in a very different way than was the case\u201d when it submitted its application, in March 2024.<\/p>\n