Hydrogen Energy

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications of their decision to cancel the pilot plan for a ‘hydrogen town’.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

It is me again, I am afraid.

We have decided not to progress work on a hydrogen town pilot until after a decision in 2026 on any potential role for hydrogen in heating. The Government carefully considered the implications of this decision and the alternative options. Heat pumps and heat networks will be the primary means of decarbonisation for the foreseeable future.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I start by congratulating the Minister on injecting a modicum of common sense into the myth that hydrogen could ever be a meaningful player in home heating. My Question was prompted by a conversation with the CEO of a heat battery company, who is having to postpone a decision to build a new factory until the Government can give a clear signal that the 2026 deadline for the hydrogen strategy review has gone. Will the Minister take this opportunity to give him that clarity, so that he and others can add to the 9% green growth seen last year in an otherwise stagnant economy?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I would be very interested in speaking to the noble Baroness’s contact in heat batteries; I have also met a number of heat battery manufacturers. For those who have not come across it, it is a great growth industry in the UK and a fantastic technology. There is one particularly good company up in Scotland that I visited recently. I am not sure what extra clarification we could provide that would help her contact. We have said—indeed, I said it in my Answer—that heat pumps, heat networks and electrification will be by far the vast majority of the decarbonisation of home heating in the UK. If hydrogen plays any role at all, it will be only a very tiny one.