By 2030, 3 Million Homes Could Be Using Low-Carbon Hydrogen for Heat

By year 2030, the government aims to attract at least £4 billion in investment in the hydrogen economy, with plans to create enough hydrogen to replace fossil fuel gas for heating and cooking in around 3 million homes.

The UK Administration has released its long-awaited plans for a UK-wide hydrogen economy, which claims could be worth £900 million by the end of the decade and generate more than 9,000 high-quality employments, increasing to £13 billion and 100,000 additional jobs by 2050.

The paper lays out the company's attempts to seek investment in 5 gigawatts of hydrogen production by 2030, which would primarily power heavy industries, transportation, and up to 70,000 households.

(Photo : Photo by Tom Rumble on Unsplash)

It is predicted that by 2050, hydrogen would account for 20-35 percent of UK energy consumption, offering a clean alternative to oil and gas in electric sectors, and transportation.

It recommends a series of industry discussions to assist in the development of a subsidy scheme to support big hydrogen projects that will help decarbonize areas that are not powered by electricity.

Financial Issue Towards Multibillion-pound Project

However, there is still question over how the government will calculate a fair subsidy for the multibillion-pound projects, as well as whether the cost would be borne by households or the Treasury. After an industry consultation later this year, the government has promised further clarification.

The CBI's top UK policy director, Matthew Fell, said the strategy contained key measures for the hydrogen sector.

Firms will now be looking for the government to develop comprehensive regulations and standards for hydrogen production and application, to capitalize on those large-scale economic potential, and release the requisite private sector funding, according to Matthew Fell.

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The Low Carbon Hydrogen Projects Under Development

Green hydrogen schemes take hydrogen from water while leaving only oxygen in the process, whereas "blue hydrogen" extracts hydrogen from fossil fuel gas while capturing the greenhouse gas emissions left behind.

However, a study published last week by Cornell and Stanford Universities in the United States warned that blue hydrogen could be up to 20% worse for the environment than fossil gas due to emissions released during production, multiplied by the amount of gas required to produce the same amount of energy from hydrogen.

Although the UK government says it will set emissions standards for blue hydrogen projects to ensure that they capture enough greenhouse gas emissions during hydrogen production to be classified as "low carbon," many environmentalists and green energy producers have urged the government to abandon the technology entirely.

The planned document does not include a vision for the future balance of blue and green hydrogen, despite an explicit directive from its authorized environmental experts at the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to do so.

The CCC has backed up proposals for a "blue hydrogen bridge" to support green hydrogen in the short future since it has the potential to begin substituting fossil fuels sooner and on a larger scale than green hydrogen initiatives. Critics of blue hydrogen, on the other hand, worry that a long-term commitment may increase the UK's dependency on fossil fuels.

According to Dan McGrail the national strategy "doesn't focus nearly enough on developing the UK's world-leading green hydrogen industry" and should "set out a clear ambition for green hydrogen."

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