UK – Delegates of Hydrogen UK’s annual conference, held at the National Conference Centre in Birmingham on 12 March, left the event with no doubts about the future of the burgeoning hydrogen economy. Opening the conference, Clare Jackson, CEO of Hydrogen UK, declared that “net zero is not possible without hydrogen”. Keynote speakers from multinational energy companies Centrica and SSE and industrial gases and chemicals firm Air Products all agreed that hydrogen will necessarily replace fossil fuels in “hard-to-abate” sectors, including heavy-duty transportation and the steel industry; moreover, they argued that hydrogen will become an indispensable link in the energy production chain as we divest from burning coal and gas and shift to renewables such as wind and solar. By all accounts, then, the hydrogen economy holds great promise for potential investors. The burning question is, will the UK have any significant part in its development? Or, to put it another way, will the UK become a net importer or net exporter of hydrogen?

Hydrogen fuel will reach the tanks of fuel cell electric and internal combustion vehicles from two sources. The first source will be one of many planned facilities dedicated to the production of hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels. Through steam reformation of natural gas, so-called “grey” or “blue” hydrogen is made (depending on whether or not the carbon monoxide byproduct is “captured” or sequestered underground); through electrolysis of water molecules using renewable energy, so-called “green” hydrogen is made. The other source will be wind, solar, and other renewable energy farms dedicated to the generation of electricity for the grid. Intermittent and unpredictable in nature, these forms of energy generation often produce excess electricity when it is not needed, and the excess energy will go to waste if it is not stored. By installing an electrolyser, wind and solar can be used to generate hydrogen instead during times of low demand from the grid. As an “energy carrier”, this hydrogen can be stored and used for other purposes such as fuelling a vehicle. In the future, fuel suppliers will arrange with energy companies to offtake some of the hydrogen produced in this fashion, while some manufacturers and fleets may elect to produce their own fuel through small-scale electrolyser projects. The conference keynotes were indifferent or “agnostic” as to whether the hydrogen is “blue” or “green”: hydrogen projects currently in progress around the world will together produce both types in roughly equal measure.