Company secures government funding to deliver world’s first commercial-scale hydrogen-fired brick kiln
WIENERBERGER UK & Ireland have successfully secured government-backed funding that will allow their landmark hydrogen kiln project at their brickworks in Denton, Greater Manchester, to proceed – marking a major step towards the decarbonization of the UK’s heavy clay manufacturing industry.
Backed through the UK Government’s Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IEFT), the funding will part support a £6 million conversion programme that will transition the site’s existing natural gas-fired brick kilns to run on 100% green hydrogen. This breakthrough will make Denton the first commercial-scale hydrogen-fired brick plant in the world, firmly establishing wienerberger as a pioneer of low-carbon industrial heat innovation.
Hydrogen firing has been identified by the UK Government as a promising long-term solution for high-temperature industrial processes. Denton brickworks now stand as the flagship deployment for the UK ceramics sector, providing a replicable blueprint for future decarbonization across wienerberger’s wider manufacturing network.
The project includes the retrofit of two tunnel kilns – replacing 224 natural gas-powered burners, installing new hydrogen supply infrastructure, and upgrading electrical and control systems – without altering the structural integrity of the existing kilns.
Linked to the Hydrogen Allocation Rounds (HAR) funding scheme, hydrogen will be supplied under a 15-year hydrogen supply agreement with Trafford Green Hydrogen. Deliveries will be made via tube trailers to a dedicated on-site hydrogen offloading and pressure-reduction station.
The target is for one kiln to be fully operational, or both kilns partially converted, to hydrogen firing by Autumn 2027. The complete transition to 100% hydrogen firing across the entire site is scheduled to commence in Autumn 2028.
Once fully operational, the switch from natural gas to green hydrogen is expected to reduce CO2 emissions at Denton brickworks by more than 11,600 tonnes per year, equivalent to a 9% reduction in wienerberger Ltd’s annual Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions.
The investment supports wienerberger’s long-term strategy to reach net-zero carbon emissions and will help meet rising demand for low-carbon building materials across the UK. The emissions reduction is equivalent to heating 4,957 UK homes for a year*.
*Heating the UK’s 25 million homes produces 58.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year – an average of 2.34 tonnes of CO2 per home. Source: National Housing Federation (2021).
