Dalkia to build Barrow green hydrogen plant

Dalkia has secured the contract to deliver the Barrow Green Hydrogen project in Cumbria, moving one of the UK’s early industrial hydrogen production schemes into its construction phase.

Main works are due to begin this summer, with commercial operation expected within the next two years. The 30MW plant is being delivered by Green Hydrogen Energy Company and will supply Kimberly-Clark’s manufacturing site in Barrow.

Dalkia will manage the project from design through to commissioning. Its scope includes utilities coordination, civil works, hydrogen storage, mechanical and electrical services, fire and security systems, trenching, and pipework. Modular construction and prefabrication will be used to reduce time on site and support tighter quality control across technical process packages.

The project sits under the first wave of Low Carbon Hydrogen Agreements, the government-backed mechanism intended to support early hydrogen production capacity. Its construction value lies in the practical detail now attached to the hydrogen market: constrained sites, utility interfaces, process safety, storage infrastructure, and industrial offtake all have to be resolved before low-carbon fuel can become operational supply.

Rob Faro, managing director of Dalkia Engineering, said: “Dalkia is backed by EDF which is a global leader in green energies, and we are proud to have brought our expertise into a collaborative partnership with the client to optimise delivery of one of the first hydrogen production facilities to reach Final Investment Decision in the UK.”

Hydrogen is already beginning to appear across different parts of the construction and built environment supply chain. Wienerberger’s Denton hydrogen kiln project is one example from materials manufacturing, while Dawsongroup’s move to add a JCB hydrogen generator to its rental fleet shows the technology also entering site power and plant hire.

The Barrow project adds a different layer because it is a production facility with a named industrial user. That should give the construction programme a clearer demand case than more speculative hydrogen schemes waiting for future offtakers. It also ties hydrogen infrastructure directly to manufacturing decarbonisation, where energy reliability is as important as emissions reduction.

For construction teams, the delivery challenge is more complex than a conventional energy-centre build. Hydrogen projects carry additional requirements around storage, separation distances, ventilation, control systems, electrical integration, monitoring, and commissioning. Process safety is central from the start, and every package has to support operation in a tightly managed industrial environment.

Prefabrication should help reduce some delivery exposure. Factory-built modules can limit on-site labour, improve repeatability, and reduce the number of high-risk activities undertaken in the field. That approach is already familiar in data centres, healthcare services modules, and industrial M&E installations, and it is likely to become more common as hydrogen projects move from pilot schemes into replicable infrastructure.

Barrow still faces the wider constraints affecting energy infrastructure: grid connections, specialist equipment lead times, permitting, water requirements, and skilled commissioning resource. Those are not marginal issues. They can control the programme as much as the visible civil works.

The project’s importance is practical rather than symbolic. It gives the sector a defined hydrogen construction package with a delivery contractor, an industrial customer, and a timetable. As more schemes take that form, hydrogen will become less of a policy category and more of a built asset class, requiring the same discipline around design certainty, programme control, and site execution as any other critical infrastructure.