The Government has published its ‘Hydrogen Strategy’, outlining plans to accelerate the development of a low carbon hydrogen economy and support innovation.
The Government has outlined how it aims to kick start world-leading hydrogen economy, supporting over 9,000 UK jobs and unlock £4 billion investment by 2030.
The plan sets out a twin-track approach to supporting electrolytic “green” and carbon capture-enabled “blue” hydrogen production, alongside other potential production routes, which the Government says will enable rapid growth of the sector while bringing down costs.
The Strategy includes a comprehensive roadmap for the development of the wider hydrogen economy over the 2020s to deliver on the Government’s 5GW by 2030 ambition.
According to the Government, a booming, UK-wide hydrogen economy could be worth £900 million and create over 9,000 high-quality jobs by 2030, potentially rising to 100,000 jobs and worth up to £13 billion by 2050. By 2030, hydrogen could play an important role in decarbonising polluting, energy-intensive industries like chemicals, oil refineries, power and heavy transport like shipping, HGV lorries and trains, by helping these sectors move away from fossil fuels.
With government analysis suggesting that 20-35% of the UK’s energy consumption by 2050 could be hydrogen-based, this new energy source could be critical to meet targets of net zero emissions by 2050 and cutting emissions by 78% by 2035, a view shared by the UK’s independent Climate Change Committee.
The Government has also published a wider package of policy documents on hydrogen alongside the Strategy
