McDermott has been awarded an Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) agreement from Abraxas Power Corporation for the Exploits Valley Renewable Energy Corporation (EVREC) project located in Central Newfoundland – Canada’s first commercial green hydrogen and ammonia production facility

The project will include the development of up to 530-turbine wind farm with the ability to generate 3.5 GW of electricity and 150 MW solar PV. The facility will have the capacity to produce 165kta of hydrogen and 5000 metric tons per day of ammonia.

Under the scope of the agreement, McDermott will provide front-end engineering design (FEED), engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) execution planning services, and open book EPC cost estimate for the hydrogen production, ammonia processing, and product storage portion of the project.

The work will be led from McDermott’s Houston office with support from its Gurgaon office in India.

Green hydrogen will play a disappointingly small role in global decarbonization between now and 2030, according to International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol.

Despite a plethora of projects and “huge excitement” around green hydrogen, Birol said IEA research had found a significant gap between the hype and the reality.

Speaking at a press conference earlier this year for the launch of the IEA’s Renewables market report, Birol said: “Of all the projects today in the pipeline, only 7% will see the light of day and come online before 2030.”

Birol said the hydrogen bubble had burst because of a slow pace of projects reaching an investment decision, combined with a limited appetite from off-takers and higher production costs.

To fully convince investors, Birol said ambitious project announcements should be followed by consistent policies supporting demand, adding that he hoped “to see governments take steps to create demand for hydrogen”.