How hydrogen can help decarbonise the UK's energy system

Celia Greaves, founder and chief executive of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (UKHFCA), is at the forefront of the development of the country’s hydrogen industry.

While the UK government is leading the charge with various policy and funding initiatives, ultimately it is largely the 90-plus members of the UKHFCA – ranging from start-ups to multinationals and spanning the hydrogen supply chain from production to end consumer – that are at the forefront of development and delivery of what is set to be a major component of the country’s energy sector.

“Our mission is around making the sector grow within the UK,” says Greaves, adding that a key focus is on “getting the right policies in place”.

Greaves says the three main applications in focus for hydrogen in UK are in the ‘hard to decarbonise’ sectors, i.e. industry, transport – particularly heavy transport including aviation, maritime and rail – and heating.

“We've got the natural gas grid which is a huge national asset and decarbonising through hydrogen into people's homes is a really interesting opportunity.”

She adds that the trials on up to 20% hydrogen blending and investigations into full conversion have been “hugely positive” so far, but with government decisions on blending due only in 2023/24 and full conversion in 2026, those timescales should be accelerated as “with all of these applications, we need to move quickly”.

“The government sees up to 35% of final energy consumption from hydrogen by 2050 and given there is almost nothing now, it is a huge transformation of the whole energy system that we are facing.”

Supply chains

Greaves comments that the association is working with the government through different advisory groups on the best route to develop homegrown supply chains in order to grow the industry and gain both the net zero and economic benefits.

“The idea is to minimise the inputs without importing either hydrogen or hydrogen technologies and the aim is to first and foremost to decarbonise the UK energy system. But potentially in the future, we will see exports of technology, know how, engineering skills and product.”

When it comes to developing the hydrogen industry, Greaves says the government is doing “a reasonably good job” on the hydrogen production side.

While the association has been calling for a production target of 20GW by 2030, the previous 5GW target has been increased to 10GW, although that increase was not accompanied by additional government support.

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“We need to move fast and at scale and we’ve got mechanisms in place from government to get started but the question is whether they will be enough and there's a lot of detail on still to be worked through.”

On the use side, Greaves says there is much more to be done, in particular in the transport sector.

“We're starting to see some progress with heavy transport and aviation and similarly in the railway sector we're seeing early demonstrations. But in terms of a clear strategy for hydrogen transport and balancing policy and support to stimulate demand and supply for hydrogen, we are way off.”

As an example, she mentions Europe which is talking of mandating hydrogen vehicle refuelling stations every so many kilometres apart, while in the UK there is no discussion on the issue.

“The UK approach continues to be patchy and not reflective of the benefits that hydrogen offers. We need to accelerate planning and decisions.”

Hydrogen industry development

What then would Greaves recommend and consider, for example, the debate around hydrogen blending in the gas networks with some developing the approach but others considering it a wasted effort when a 100% approach should be pursued?

“For me, it illustrates two things. One is the ubiquity of the hydrogen opportunities and the other is the need for us to be very careful in balancing the supply and demand so that we don't scale up the supply and find that there's no offtake or similarly scale up demand when supply is limited.”

Specifically, on gas blending, she says it is about offering an early uptake opportunity and stimulating a strong and steady early demand for hydrogen, which will help producers to scale up and bring costs down.

Another issue which has attracted some controversy is the early pursuit of blue versus green hydrogen developments, with the possibility that the former could become stranded when the latter becomes more widespread.

“Our view is that we'll need both, also nuclear-generated, as the target and where we want to get to is such a huge journey ahead of us.”

Commenting on the need to move away colour based terminologies, Greaves calls for a focus instead on low carbon as the path to next zero.

“The government with its 10GW target places equal focus on CCUS enabled and renewable hydrogen, which we support, but moving increasingly to renewable hydrogen in the medium term.”

With reference to nuclear generated hydrogen, the Association has set up a working group, which is looking at issues such as how to link across the use of electrolysis with nuclear to produce hydrogen at scale.

“In broad terms, one has low cost, low carbon electricity with steady generation as a base starting point, which is really helpful. One also has heat that can be used within the process to help optimise it.”

Low carbon hydrogen standard

The other key recent development in the UK is the announcement by the government of the low carbon hydrogen standard, set at 20g CO2/MJ of hydrogen.

Greaves describes this as a good starting point. The standards gives a pragmatic balance between the path to net zero with low carbon hydrogen but not so low as to stifle the number of different projects that need to be in place to get the scale up proceeding.

“But we think there may be scope to reduce it further in the future, particularly on the CCUS enabled projects as the technologies are honed and can get more CO2 out.”

She also welcomed the statements by the government on certification schemes, particularly in the context of international trade, saying that messaging such as a traffic light system with green for low emission can be very powerful.

“Even before the standard came in we have been seeing consumers specifically requesting renewable hydrogen and that is the market deciding. And with the activities of the consumer-facing companies, we have every expectation that the public will go with us on this journey.”