UK businesses have pledged more than £3bn in the emerging hydrogen sector if Prime Minister Boris Johnson backs the low-carbon fuel in his forthcoming Net Zero speech expected this week.
Earlier this year, cross-industry group Hydrogen Strategy Now said its members were ready to pump £1.5bn into the UK hydrogen economy.
The group revealed the figure has now doubled to £3bn as more businesses line up plans for hydrogen projects across the UK, the group said.
Members of Hydrogen Strategy Now, which combined employs around 100,000 people and has a value of £100bn in the UK, said their “shovel-ready” projects would create thousands of jobs across the country, helping to kick start a post-Covid green recovery.
The group has welcomed the recent appointment of Andrew Griffith, MP for Arundel and the South Downs, as the Government’s Net Zero business tsar.
The Hydrogen Strategy Now stated it wants to see a “clear, strategic plan” to help unlock “significant private funding” in hydrogen technologies and manufacturing across the country, “driving growth and generating hundreds of thousands of green jobs”.
Hydrogen Strategy Now said hundreds of thousands of high-skilled, green jobs, in all parts of the country and in alignment with the Government’s ‘levelling-up’ agenda.