Balfour Beatty, a leading international infrastructure group, is working towards creating a Zero Carbon Construction Site at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. The company is testing innovative solutions to reduce emissions and adopt cleaner practices. One of their recent focuses has been on introducing hydrogen alternatives on site. Hydrogen has the potential to rapidly decarbonize the industry as it is abundant, produces clean energy without CO2 emissions, and can be generated using low-carbon technologies. However, there are challenges such as availability, cost, and infrastructure limitations that need to be addressed.

Despite facing setbacks due to space requirements and footprint limitations, Balfour Beatty remains resilient and is determined to make changes moving forward. They plan to set aside space for hydrogen storage areas on site during the bid phase. The company is also exploring the use of hydrogen on other projects that have more available space, such as the Balfour Beatty VINCI's HS2 site near Birmingham, where hydrogen generation powers a large temporary accommodation building.

Balfour Beatty has secured funding from the Scottish Government's Emerging Energies Technology Fund to retrofit four carbon-intensive vehicles to run on both hydrogen and diesel. These vehicles will be trialed on the Connect Roads M77/Glasgow Southern Orbital project, and a 40% reduction in carbon emissions is expected from each retrofitted vehicle. The company aims to provide a blueprint for converting its entire fleet to hydrogen in the future.

Although the efforts to incorporate hydrogen on site at the Royal Botanic Garden did not work out, Balfour Beatty considers the knowledge gained invaluable and will use it to guide their future transition to hydrogen fuels. The company is committed to being at the forefront of the hydrogen revolution in the construction and infrastructure sector.

For more information, readers can visit Balfour Beatty's online diary entry on their website. Media enquiries should be directed to Talha Haroun at Balfour Beatty, while non-media related enquiries can be directed to the company's general contact information. Balfour Beatty is a leading international infrastructure group with over 25,000 employees, and they finance, develop, build, maintain, and operate critical infrastructure projects worldwide.