Hydrogen Heating

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

With respect to the noble Baroness’s first question, I think she needs to read the letter from the leader of Redcar Council more carefully. I do not think it supports the analysis she gave. Nevertheless, I have said on numerous occasions that no hydrogen village trial will take place without strong support from local residents. On the noble Baroness’s second question, yes, hydrogen does have a high global warming potential, which illustrates the importance of not allowing it to leak at all.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, is the National Infrastructure Commission’s report really welcome? What it says in that report is that hydrogen molecules are just too difficult for 23 million domestic supplies at home. It wants to dig up or close down entirely the existing retail gas distribution system as well, because it thinks it does not fit in with our global aims—and it is absolutely right. And it wants to turn us into an all-electric economy. But have we got the slightest clue where all this extra electricity will come from, how it will be transmitted and delivered, and how that can be done at reasonable cost to the consumer? Until we have a clearer view on those things, it is very hard to just say that we welcome the NIC report.