Anne-Marie Mountifield, Chair of The Solent Cluster, said: “The Solent Cluster remains committed to our vision of securing a lower carbon future which will bring jobs and economic prosperity to our region, facilitate organisations to work collaboratively and make our contribution to the area’s move to a lower carbon future at the same time as supporting the move to increased energy security.
“Hampshire and its marine gateway, the Solent, is one of the largest and most successful industrial areas in the country, supporting 90,000 business and a £50bn economy. Drawing on the work of our world-leading universities, further education colleges, local authority partners and high growth businesses, we have the opportunity to foster collaboration and facilitate industrial sector carbon emission reductions in this area to meet our ambitions for a lower carbon future.
“Our focus to date and over the next year is the Local Industrial Decarbonisation Plan (LIDP) which will help deliver these ambitions. Significantly, our work through the Solent Local Industrial Decarbonisation Plan (LIDP) is running a range of scenarios that will inform how the area may realise this transition, and this includes alternative CO2 reduction and transportation opportunities.
‘We thank ExxonMobil for its pivotal role in establishing The Solent Cluster and raising awareness of the region’s potential to contribute to the country’s Net Zero ambitions. We look forward to continuing our work together to explore a range of alternative emissions reduction solutions.
“We will continue to work collaboratively with the UK’s industrial clusters for solutions that benefit the region as well as deliver on the national ambition for a decarbonised future.
“The Government has, today, announced the successful conclusion of commercial negotiations with the Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage (CCUS) Track-1 clusters in other parts of the country – East Coast Cluster (ECC) and HyNet – which demonstrates a national focus on the importance of carbon capture sites. At The Solent Cluster, we look forward to engaging with these clusters to look at how we can support a drive to a low carbon future for our region and devise further opportunities for Solent businesses and partners to collaborate as part of the drive to realise our ambitions for a lower carbon future.
“Decarbonising the economy is essential on many levels. The Solent Cluster has proved successful in collaborating with a large and diverse range of organisations committed to working together to collectively tackle this incredibly important issue. We have solid foundations on which to build and are committed to championing the decarbonisation of the region and the area’s long-term economic success.”
Please see The Solent Cluster Business Plan for further detail.