A total of £60m will be provided to support research and development around lower carbon methods to produce the gas at scale to meet future heat and transportation demand
The UK Government has published proposals for a second Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply Competition that will invest a total of up to £60m in developing new ways to manufacture and distribute the gas. A major aim of these new hydrogen approaches will be to meet demand for using the gas for heat and transport.
An official notice about the competition said that low carbon hydrogen is expected to be an important part of the country’s legal commitment to become a net zero carbon economy by 2050 alongside electrification as an alternative to directly using fossil fuels for heat.
It stated, “Hydrogen has an essential role to play in the deep decarbonisation of the UK economy, with potential to help decarbonise ‘hard to electrify’ UK industrial sectors, and provide greener energy across heat, power and transport.”
“Moreover, the UK’s geography, geology, infrastructure and expertise make it particularly suited to rapidly developing a low carbon hydrogen economy and to secure economic opportunities across the UK.”
Broad proposals for the new competition have now been published with various different funding streams to support a range of approaches at different points of development.
A first phase of the competition will look at supporting feasibility studies to a value of up to £300,000 per project concerning the production of both low carbon and zero carbon hydrogen, as well as storage and supply solutions. Funds for this stage of the project will total £6m.
Another focus of funding for this phase, totalling £24m, will be supplied to further develop certain feasibility study projects to support the physical demonstration and ongoing research of these solutions. This research will be used to support businesses cases for wider market deployment of successful projects. Up to £6m per project will be provided during this phase.
A final funding pot of £30m will be set aside for technologies and systems nearer to market that can support lower carbon hydrogen. Up to £10m per project will be on offer to demonstrate the solutions.