In July 2022, the Government doubled the UK’s ambition for up to 10GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, with at least half of this coming from electrolytic hydrogen. The stated goal is to have up to 1GW of electrolytic hydrogen and up to 1GW of CCUS-enabled hydrogen operational or in construction by 2025. However things have gone rather slowly. A new independent advisory ‘Hydrogen Champion’ report looks at what might be done to speed the programme up. It notes that ‘Government analysis suggests that by 2050, the UK will need between 250 and 460 TWh of hydrogen, delivering 20- 35% of the UK’s final energy consumption – equivalent to the UK’s total energy consumption today.’ So it could be big.
It says ‘Following delays in the passage of the Energy Bill, and with decisions on the next phase of CCS industrial cluster sequencing and the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund application process pending, there is market uncertainty. It is time for the UK Government to take key policy decisions to encourage investment in hydrogen production and to stimulate demand (including for exports). Industry must also work more pro-actively with government to build a hydrogen economy which drives growth in skills and UK based supply chains’.
The reports main recommendation is clear enough: ‘Kickstart investment by overcoming barriers to deliver the first CCUS-enabled and electrolytic hydrogen production projects at scale. This will boost investor confidence, build project momentum and drive UK content’. But there are issues. The report uses the term ‘CCUS-enabled hydrogen’, by which it means hydrogen made using fossil gas with carbon capture, utilisation and storage, which is more usually called blue hydrogen. There are major environmental objections to that - it is not carbon free and CCS is unproven at scale. Certainly the UK programme has been very slow.
Most greens would prefer green hydrogen - made by electrolysis using renewable power. But that too has been slow to get going and may cost more than blue hydrogen, at least initially. The report explores many ways in which these options can developed faster for each sector, including facing up to the issue of blending hydrogen with fossil gas as an interim option.
A key sector is heating. The report notes that ‘hydrogen demand from heat could increase sharply, increasing from up to 1% of heat demand by 2030 to around 27% of heat demand by 2035 (in the most bullish scenario).’ Village and town level test are planned. ‘By 2025, plans will be finalised for a potential hydrogen heated town to be delivered by 2030.’ But the report notes there are issues, at least for home heating: it says electric heat pumps are far more efficient, although, it adds, there may be other issues: ‘domestically, heat pumps offer higher efficiency in terms of heat output per unit of energy input, but there is a need to take into account wider costs and barriers such as hard-to-insulate properties and electricity network constraints. Once these factors are taken into account, some whole system studies indicate that hydrogen heat pathways could be cheaper in certain circumstances.’
The report say that ‘it is proposed that ministerial decisions on whether and how hydrogen should play a role in decarbonising heat in the UK, alongside electrification and heat networks, will be made in 2026 and will include a decision on whether to proceed with plans for the Town Pilot’. So hydrogen is still in with a chance, especially since ‘our housing stock is the oldest in Europe, and less easily insulated and adapted for heat pumps’ So ‘hydrogen has the potential to form part of the solution, subject to the safety case being met’.
The report notes that hydrogen use in the transport sector is viable, but also has some issues, with electric cars offering an obvious challenge. But hydrogen may prove viable for vans, trucks and buses, and also aircraft, while it is also likely find wide scale uses for process heating in industry. Though will it be mostly be blue hydrogen at first? Would that be wise?
Hydrogen clearly has as a future, but although this report is pretty ‘gung ho’ pro-hydrogen gas, it does recognise some of the problems. Meanwhile though, hydrogen for heating continues to attract challenges (see my earlier post) with the latest issue being the use of the label ‘hydrogen ready’ on new gas boilers. The idea is that they can still be installed despite the plan for fossil fuel fired gas boilers to be banned by the new housing regulations being proposed for England for 2025.
A group of over 40 organisations has written to the government asking for this potential loophole to be closed. The E3G thinktank, who organised the letter, said: ‘Connecting new built homes to the gas grid, during a gas crisis, is a disaster for energy bills, energy security, and the climate emergency. Experts have repeatedly concluded that hydrogen will not provide a nationwide solution for heat decarbonisation. Hydrogen-ready boilers could act as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, allowing new homes to be connected to the gas grid, with little chance they will be supplied with green hydrogen anytime soon’.
The result could be that consumers end up producing extra emission. As the Guardian noted, gas boilers, including those labelled hydrogen-ready, costs less (about £2,000 each), than fitting a heat pump (about £5,000 for developers & £12,000 for households). So developers and home owners may avoid them, even though, as a new study from UKERC claims, they may cut net emissions by 40% and are likely to be more cost effective over time than fossil/hydrogen gas boilers, depending on fuel prices.
Though UKERC does admit that heat pumps can still be costly run, the ‘hydrogen ready’ loophole is very unfortunate. A study by the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), entitled Regret-ready: A briefing on UK proposals for the mandating of hydrogen-ready gas boilers, warns that there is a ‘substantial’ risk of ‘greenwash’, in which carbon-intensive products, in this case, gas boilers, are marketed as climate-friendly in order to continue selling them. It is particularly worried about manufacturers marketing appliances as ‘hydrogen-blend-ready’. That means they are able to burn up to 20% hydrogen blends in the fossil gas mix. RAP says most boilers already can, with a bit of adjustment to the jets. Ultimately, the only difference between a hydrogen-blend-ready boiler and a typical gas boiler is a sticker, Richard Lowes, senior associate at the RAP and author of the briefing, told Hydrogen Insight. But, the report says the label ‘may mislead consumers, who might think they are already switching to a clean source of heat, while in fact their new boiler continues to run on fossil heating and therefore has the same climate impact. Hydrogen may never be blended into the gas grid in the consumers’ area.’
This spate of labelling activity is certainly worrying given that, as noted above, a government decision on whether hydrogen will be used for home heating nationally won’t be taken until 2026. Meanwhile though some consumers have been very wary of a proposed government backed gas company-run domestic hydrogen trial at Whitby. They have, it seems, already started to object to the project. And there’s been some backtracking. It’s all a bit of a mess…
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