The government wants 3m households in the UK to use hydrogen to fuel their homes rather than fossil fuel gas.
Business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng will today publish the government’s long-awaited Hydrogen Strategy, which aims to foster a hydrogen economy worth at least £4bn by 2030. The industry could be worth £13bn by 2050.
The strategy document will lay out efforts to attract investment for five gigawatts of hydrogen production by 2030, which is around . It states that hydrogen could account for 20-35% of the UK’s energy consumption by 2050, providing a clean alternative to oil and gas in energy-intensive industries, power and transport.
Kwarteng said: “Today marks the start of the UK’s hydrogen revolution. This home-grown clean energy source has the potential to transform the way we power our lives and will be essential to tackling climate change and reaching net zero.”
A consultation will also be launched to look at ways to make hydrogen cost efficient for other users, with the government keen for it to “play an important role in decarbonising polluting, energy-intensive industries”, from oil refineries to mass transport. Meanwhile a fund will offer a share of £240m to support production plants.
The report estimates that a low-carbon hydrogen economy could deliver emissions savings equivalent to the carbon captured by 700m trees by 2032. Actually planting 700m trees would require about 1m acres of land.
However, the strategy also states that the hydrogen produced will be both “green” hydrogen extracted from water, and “blue” hydrogen extracted from fossil fuel gas.
Last week, a study by academics at Cornell and Stanford universities in the US warned that blue hydrogen could be up to 20% worse for the climate than fossil gas owing to the emissions that escape during its production.
The Hydrogen Strategy is one of a series of strategies the government is publishing ahead of the COP26 summit taking place in Glasgow this November. While strategies for industry and transport have been released, its Heat and Buildings and Net Zero Strategies have yet to be published.
