Hydrogen in the UK3 March 2021

• £20m in 2021 for “freight trials to pioneer hydrogen and other zero emission truck technologies to support industry to develop cost-effective, zero emission HGVs in the UK”;
• £120m in 2021/22 to “start the delivery of the 4,000 zero emission buses announced by the Prime Minister”, with support for “both battery electric buses and hydrogen buses where the market favours their use”;
• £20m Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition to be launched to “support the UK design and development of clean maritime technology, including hydrogen, and will lay the foundation for a network of real-world projects”; and
• Chapter 5 on Industrial Energy pledges to “[e]stablish the UK as a world leader in the deployment of CCUS and clean hydrogen, supporting up to 60,000 jobs by 2030”.

Separately, the Scottish Hydrogen Policy Statement confirms the Scottish Government’s commitment to “providing a supportive policy and regulatory environment to support hydrogen production and use and to enable Scotland to take a pioneering role in a growing global industry”. They set out an outline of anticipated developments as follows:

• In the 2020s – Demonstration, accelerating market demand and getting the policy framework right (supporting R&D and demonstration; building capability and partnerships with organisations and governments; establishing hydrogen demand in transport and industrial applications with supportive actions and investment, including access to public and private finance);
• In the 2030s – Production at Scale (scaling up and bringing down costs; developing competitive, large scale, low-cost hydrogen for domestic use; developing floating hydrogen production and an export industry for hydrogen and its derivatives); and
• By 2045 – Scaling up and global expansion (production of lowest cost green hydrogen for domestic use and for export; international transportation of hydrogen, including shipping and North Sea hydrogen pipeline infrastructure connecting Scotland to continental Europe).

Hopes of industry

As mentioned above, Government papers recognised calls for a strategy from various quarters. These calls are perhaps most clearly stated by the Hydrogen Strategy Now campaign⁷, which features an open letter to the Chancellor from private businesses who “stand ready to invest £3bn into hydrogen projects in the UK today”. Campaign partners include a whole host of businesses from, AngloAmerican, EDF and Equinor to Ørsted, Petrofac, Siemens, Storengy and Vattenfall.

The UK Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Association (UKHFCA) announced the launch of a new Position Paper setting out a UK timeline for green hydrogen development to 2050. It is branded as “a clear route for developing a significant green hydrogen industrial base in the UK, which is necessary to ensure the country’s leadership in hydrogen innovation”⁸. While it has not yet been launched (it is due 3 March 2021), inspiratia’s 23 February 2021 story on the report⁹ has given us early sight of some of the key content.

In the real estate sector:

• HyDeploy @ Keele¹³: This project is the first live demonstration of hydrogen use in homes, where up to 20% hydrogen is blended with natural gas into the private gas grid on site. The next phases of the project will see a larger demonstration on a public gas grid.
• BIG HIT¹⁴: This project, Building Innovative Green Hydrogen Systems in Isolated Territories, aims to “demonstrate the Orkney Islands of Scotland as a replicable Hydrogen Territory, using curtailed renewable energy generated locally to produce hydrogen … to store and use valuable energy for local applications”. Produced on some of the smaller islands, the hydrogen is then transported to mainland Orkney, to be used in various applications including auxiliary power and heat for ferries in Kirkwall harbour, fuelling a fleet of hydrogen range-extended light vehicles, and heating for buildings. The twelve project partners from Denmark, France, Italy, Malta, Spain and the UK include a non-profit private organisation, a university, manufacturers, government bodies and a residents trust

As demonstrated by the examples above, there are many exciting projects in the UK, some backed by Government funding, which are either in the research and development phase, or in the demonstration phase. The examples included here just scrape the surface, but the question will be how these projects can be commercialised and rolled out into our daily lives. The UK’s Hydrogen Strategy will have a big role to play in enabling this and in overcoming barriers and challenges.

Current Challenges

The current challenges faced by the hydrogen industry include:

• A lack of regulatory certainty, and whether participating in the production, transportation and storage of hydrogen will require the same type of licensing currently required for natural gas under the Gas Act 1986;
• A lack of coherent and common technical standards, which would make skills and manufactured parts transferrable from one project to the next. Interoperability would unlock efficiencies and further development potential;
• A skills gap in the work force, which cannot be filled until there is some certainty that the skills will be required – both in terms of investing in and developing training programmes, but also in terms of uptake of any programmes offered. There is potential here to also re-train workers from the oil and gas industry, which has recently seen significant job cuts with more expected over the coming years; and
• A lack of developed supply chains – both because much of the technology is new and rapidly evolving, but also because without interoperability standards, it is nearly impossible to guess which design or technology will be a “winner”.