Carbon-neutral goal: CLP eyes hydrogen-powered plants to cut emission as Hong Kong prepares to update 2050 neutrality target

Power plants generate almost two-thirds of Hong Kong’s carbon emission, with CLP as the larger contributor of two producers in the city

CLP reduced its overall carbon emission to 0.57kg per kilowatt-hour in 2020 from 0.62 in 2019, aims to reach 0.15 by 2050

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A view of Castle Peak Power Station in Tuen Mun district operated by the CLP group. Photo: Martin Chan

Published: 8:30am, 12 Apr 2021Updated: 8:30am, 12 Apr 2021

CLP Holdings, the larger of two power utilities in Hong Kong, will raise the bar on its decarbonisation efforts after the government set a goal for the city to become carbon neutral by 2050.

The company also sees hydrogen as a green replacement for natural gas as the firm looks forward to developing a long-term solution, according to Chief Executive Officer Richard Lancaster.

“Given the announcement by the Hong Kong government, and with our recent agreement with the Australian government [to retire a coal-fired power plant], we need to see how they will impact our climate vision,” he told reporters on Thursday.

With cost reduction through technological advancement and mass equipment production, a viable supply chain using surplus renewable energy to produce, transport and deploy hydrogen in power plants to replace natural gas is expected to emerge in a decade, he added.

Richard Kendall Lancaster, CECO of CLP Holdings, seen during a media briefing in February 2018. Photo: Winson Wong

Hong Kong will strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050, and the government will update its climate action plan in the middle of this year, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said in November. Carbon neutrality is achieved when residual emission is offset by deploying facilities to capture and store the same amount from the atmosphere.