The UK government’s Clean Power Action Plan aims to clean up the power system by 2030, with at least 95% of electricity generation coming from low-carbon sources. As a low carbon fuel, hydrogen is an important part of the energy mix.Hydrogen can offer significant benefits in the quest to achieve net-zero, not to mention jobs and a boost to the economy, but concerns exist around cost, skills and infrastructure.Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and The Carbon Trust outlined the state of the hydrogen industry and invited experts to define the best way forward.

State of play

“Just a few years ago, McKinsey and Bloomberg estimated that around 20% of global energy by 2050 could come from hydrogen. We're now looking at predictions that are significantly less, and typically around half of that,” said Brown.Now that hype has died down, and hopefully the UK has settled into a more stable condition, Brown asked how the UK should be driving the hydrogen industry for the benefit of decarbonisation and the economy.“In the CCC’s Sixth Carbon Budget, it suggested we would be using something like 200 terawatt hours equivalent of hydrogen by mid-century. Our current electricity consumption is about 300 terawatt hours. So we’re nearly talking about the scale of our current electricity system – a huge new industry. More recently, the CCC’s Seventh Carbon Budget, although not yet legislated, states 106 terawatt hours of hydrogen in the UK by 2050. 106 terawatt hours of low carbon and green hydrogen in the UK being produced and used by 2050, again seeing a cut of about half. And now focused on hydrogen being used in hard to decarbonise parts of industry, such as ceramics, chemical production and things like sustainable aviation fuel, shipping fuel, and potentially energy storage, but not being used for heating in buildings. And very little, if any, being used for surface transport. But even though we've settled down to this much lower figure, it is still a huge new industry and a major opportunity for the UK,” she explained.According to Brown, the UK is particularly well placed to take a lead in this low carbon hydrogen industry amid slow global progress if it has the right support in place to drive it.

Delivering on hydrogen

Paolo Favino, Head of Innovation, Technology and Transformation, Automotive Unit, at the Department of Business and Trade, gave an overview of its work to support the transition to hydrogen and implied the current government had a more ambitious stance on hydrogen.Favino shared how the UK is identifying different opportunities for growth and hydrogen propulsion technologies. Working with stakeholders across automotive, aerospace, marine, rail and off-road, in order to maximise investments.“The previous government had a different approach to the current government. It was very much – let's address the market failures then the market will fix it. This government is different – it has a plan. We have an industrial policy. That means that we have a vision for how future advanced manufacturing supply chains in the UK should look like to maximise growth.”In terms of primary opportunities for hydrogen, experts discussed a number of potential areas.“The UK has a strong model manufacturing industry and one of the key areas we are asking is how do we transition elements of the internal combustion industry into net-zero by introducing hydrogen combustion,” added Favino.Other areas of opportunity included using hydrogen for the decarbonisation of maritime – both domestic and international shipping.“Aviation and aerospace are other areas where hydrogen can play a role but they are not as technology ready as maritime – so we’re talking 2040. While we look at maximising the benefits from a net-zero perspective, what we want to see is maximised growth for UK companies, here and internationally,” said Favino.Questions from the floor were raised on how the UK expects to compete with countries like China. While there was no direct answer, Favino suggested it would be through a focus on quality and niche applications and technologies, rather than a race to the bottom.Later in the morning, speakers from GeoPura to Burges Salmon and E3G shared some of the exciting zero emission hydrogen projects that are underway, as well as some challenges around infrastructure and value.“Clean hydrogen could offer some really major economic benefits for the UK. Particularly in supporting a reliable clean power system and securing the future of many key industries across the country. But clean hydrogen will be expensive. I think we need to be very open about that. It will require significant subsidy, possibly in perpetuity, and where we can electrify end uses instead, electrification will be a cheaper option,” said Chris Galpin, Energy Policy Advisor at think tank, E3G.Galpin warned that governments need to invest wisely in hydrogen and work to minimise costs. Both to ensure investments deliver value for money, and to bring forward the right infrastructure, so the UK receives all the benefits of a clean hydrogen economy.“The hydrogen economy at its current scale faces a kind of chicken and egg problem. That’s common in many markets of this size. We need to create confidence and certainty, both on the supply side, and on the demand side. End users need certainty of available and affordable supplies before they start moving away from whatever fuel they are currently using towards clean hydrogen. Equally, hydrogen producers need certainty that there will be a market for the hydrogen they produce,” said Galpin.Being really clear on where hydrogen will be needed and where it won’t be and prioritising strategically important end uses over poor value ones was also recommended.

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Skilling for growth

The industrial sector is the largest consumer of hydrogen. Use cases include the chemical industries, steelmaking, cement and glassmaking to the power sector.In her talk, Professor Aoife Foley, Chair of Net Zero Infrastructure at University of Manchester  noted hydrogen’s potential role in decarbonising agriculture, agrifood and transport to heating and cooling industrial loads, such as data centres.Foley stated the industry was at a ‘bridge point’ but that the UK isn't in a hugely different situation to any other country around the world when it comes to the low carbon transition. She cited Germany, France, the US, Japan, China and India as all navigating similar challenges in developing the hydrogen industry.A sector of this size requires the right talent. Another point of discussion was workforce skills gaps for installation, commissioning and beyond.“We have the key problem of a skills shortage,” said Foley. “ It's not just engineers – it's technicians, tradespeople to do the installation, plumbers and electricians. All of these individuals, even people that can dig a trench to put in a pipe – are all part of a labour force that we need in order to scale up hydrogen, and the electrification of transport. It's the same issue in all these infrastructure sectors.”Justine Fosh, CEO of Cogent Skills, who have partnered with the Hydrogen Skills Alliance, spoke about their work to map talent needs and build skills across the whole hydrogen chain.“We undertook a piece of work to estimate what the hydrogen workforce would look like. We got to a figure that by 2030, about 29,000 people will be employed against an initial starting point of around 1,600 people working in alternative fuels. That’s a significant increase in the number of people required.”There is another factor too. “Hydrogen has a very unique set of skills and issues. In the UK, we have a demand-led system where employers and the sector start to need skills and then the system responds. However, one of the issues with a very nascent industry is that those demand signals are not very strong. They can also be fragmented. There's also a lack of scale, and as a result, those messages to the supply chain, to colleges, to universities, and so on, aren't a very strong message,” said Fosh.Another issue, she said, is that not many brand new occupations will be required for the hydrogen sector. Instead, a lot of existing skills-based roles will need to learn a host of new additional skills to be able to deal with hydrogen. “That change in skills required is going to be quite significant,” added Fosh.In addition to reskilling needs, there is a current lack of capacity to deliver apprenticeships and training to grow the new talent needed for the hydrogen economy.There is work to do, but as with any emerging industry, growing business confidence and building public awareness and education of the hydrogen sector will be key to its sustained growth.

29,000 - The estimated amount of jobs the hydrogen economy will directly support64,500 - The amount of indirect jobs the hydrogen economy is expected to support by 2030Source: Hydrogen Skills Alliance

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