To ask the Minister for Infrastructure, following the announcement of the Oxygen and Hydrogen Demonstrator Project, for her assessment on how hydrogen production could become part of the business model of NI Water.

I am committed to leading our green economic recovery, and I have supported NI Water’s Oxygen and Hydrogen demonstrator project, which aims to use a 1 megawatt electrolyser at a wastewater treatment site in the Belfast area. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate the potential benefits of using oxygen on a large scale to enable wastewater plant efficiency, whilst also producing green hydrogen to use in decarbonising transport and heat production.

The equipment is currently being procured and is expected to be commissioned and on site in Autumn 2021. Following operation over a 12 month period, the project will inform how NI Water could contribute to the growing hydrogen economy whilst generating further efficiencies from using oxygen in the wastewater treatment process.