Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what research his Department has undertaken on the technical and regulatory requirements of replacing natural gas with hydrogen to help the UK meet its decarbonisation targets.

Hydrogen is one of a number of options with the potential to play an important role in decarbonising heat, including heat networks, heat pumps, hydrogen and biogas.

Further work is needed to assess the safety and feasibility case and better understand the costs and benefits of using hydrogen in place of methane in the gas grid. We are working with industry to define and take forward a full programme of work to achieve this.

The Government is also currently investing up to £121m in a range of innovation programmes to explore and develop the potential of low carbon hydrogen for end uses sectors. This includes £25m on the Hy4Heat programme which is seeking to investigate if it is technically possible and safe to replace methane with hydrogen in appliances for residential and commercial buildings and evaluate the likely costs and performance.