The UK government is providing a package of support to boost the development of green hydrogen as part of its Energy Security Strategy.
The bulk of the £375m package will go towards supporting development of green hydrogen production capacity and also closing the gap between cost of producing green hydrogen and sale of the gas.
The largest tranche is the £240m Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, which will award funding from the end of 2022 to support the production of hydrogen as a clean, low-cost fuel for industry.
This will advance the Government’s ambition to have up to 2GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2025 and up to 10GW installed by 2030, using electricity to produce power from water by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen to create a fuel for industry.
The package also includes a £100m Hydrogen Business Model fund exclusively for electrolytic projects to cover the difference between the cost of production (the strike price) and the sale price for hydrogen (reference price).
Funding for this will launch this summer.
A further £26m of the total funding pot will go towards the Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator, aimed at supporting UK industry in adopting hydrogen as a clean, affordable fuel source for sectors like manufacturing.
It will help demonstrate the feasibility of hydrogen to businesses and reducing the cost of switching energy systems.
Out of the rest of the package £2.5m will be used to develop next-generation nuclear technology and a further £5m will go towards research into carbon capture.
Yesterday’s Energy Security Strategy, unveiled by the Prime Minister, sets out how Great Britain will accelerate the deployment of wind, new nuclear, solar and hydrogen, whilst supporting the production of domestic oil and gas in the nearer term – which could see 95% of electricity by 2030 being low carbon.
Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “This investment will unlock the enormous potential of hydrogen fuel, advanced nuclear reactors and Carbon Capture to level up the UK energy landscape and deliver for businesses and households.”