Progressive Energy backs Bacton offshore hydrogen storage as North Sea space conflicts deepen
A new study endorses hydrogen storage at Bacton, while University of Aberdeen research finds unresolved seabed competition threatening the UK energy transition.
Progressive Energy released a study during the week of 2026-07-06 backing its proposal to develop offshore hydrogen storage connected to the Bacton gas terminal on the Norfolk coast, adding fresh momentum to a concept that has long sat at the edges of UK energy policy.5
Bacton is already a node for gas landing and carbon transport, which makes the geography both appealing and contested. Eni expects to unlock about 300 million metric tons of CO2 storage capacity at the depleted Hewett gas field nearby, and its HyNet project in the Irish Sea targets up to 4.5 million metric tons per annum of stored emissions.1 Hydrogen storage would add a third vector to the same patch of seabed, and the University of Aberdeen has warned that the space available for all of these ambitions is more limited than developers acknowledge.3
The Aberdeen study, published on 2026-06-03, found that overlapping claims for offshore wind, CCS reservoirs and oil and gas production are creating potentially conflicting demands that policy has not resolved.3 No regulator has yet established a clear hierarchy of use for contested seabed areas. For a hydrogen storage project still at the study stage, that ambiguity represents a genuine permitting risk, not a distant one.
The Progressive Energy proposal would use depleted offshore reservoirs to store hydrogen, turning Bacton into a multi-fuel hub. Offshore storage in depleted fields is less proven at scale than onshore salt cavern storage — facilities in Cheshire and on the Continent already handle natural gas and are being assessed for hydrogen — which means cost and technical risk remain real questions beyond the seabed allocation problem.5
Money is flowing into carbon storage infrastructure in the same geography. The Eni-BlackRock CCUS joint venture raised over EUR 500 million ($581.59 million) from 13 international banks on 2026-05-26, a signal that project finance markets see viable economics in North Sea storage.1 But capital is not the binding constraint when permitting timelines are uncertain; if seabed rights remain contested, financing can sit committed and undeployed while disputes run through regulatory channels.
Montel reported on 2026-06-11 that ICE EUA Dec-rolling allowance prices could surge in coming years if CCS and hydrogen technologies continue to lag deployment timelines, according to a study released that day.4 A sustained rally in European carbon would strengthen the investment case for CCS and hydrogen infrastructure, but it would not resolve who holds rights to the reservoir beneath the Bacton pipeline corridor.
Shorter-duration battery storage projects are advancing faster through the UK consenting system. ESB Scotland secured Scottish government consent for its 502 MW High Netherfauld BESS in South Lanarkshire, and RWE secured development consent for its 320 MW Peartree Hill solar and storage project.5 Harmony Energy won planning consent for a 99.9 MW BESS near Heath in Wakefield after the Planning Inspectorate overturned a local refusal on appeal.5 These assets operate on two-to-four-hour discharge cycles — seasonal, multi-week storage of the kind hydrogen enables remains a separate and much harder problem to site and permit.
The global offshore energy storage market is projected to grow from USD 354 million in 2026 to USD 1.59 billion by 2035, a compound annual growth rate of 14.6%, according to industry forecasts.2 The bulk of near-term deployment within that figure is lithium-ion, not hydrogen or compressed air, which means the hydrogen storage timeline at Bacton tracks policy and permitting more closely than it tracks market growth.
A cross-industry group delivered a letter to the incoming UK government on 2026-07-14 pressing for support for homegrown oil and gas production ahead of imports, alongside greater backing for UK manufacturing.6 Hydrogen storage at Bacton does not yet carry that kind of organised political pressure behind it. What the Progressive Energy study provides is an evidence base for a strategic location — the political backing needed to move it through consenting is still absent.
The unresolved question for traders watching UK gas infrastructure is whether any government body will designate Bacton as a formal hydrogen storage cluster, unlocking regulatory support and removing the project from the general queue of competing North Sea claimants. Without that, a well-positioned study risks remaining exactly that.5,3