UK Parliamentary Committee Support for UK Hydrogen Strategy

Last week Philip Dunne MP, the Chair of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee sent a letter to Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary.  The letter supports the development of a UK Hydrogen Strategy and outlines the worldwide size of the hydrogen sector by 2050. It is a result of the Committee’s Inquiry into hydrogen.  The letter states:

“The global hydrogen economy is estimated to be worth $2.5 trillion by 2050, supporting 30 million jobs. Other nations, such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and China have already set ambitious strategies for growing their hydrogen economies. The European Commission has recently created an EU hydrogen strategy, which includes plans for multi-billion euro investment in hydrogen projects, and schemes to boost sales of hydrogen electric vehicles.”

Dunne goes on to stress the use of hydrogen in hard to decarbonise sectors and specifically mentions shipping, heavy industry and aviation.  He also stresses the need to invest significantly more in hydrogen development and concludes:

“It is clear from the evidence we have heard that to deliver the pace of development and investment needed in the sector a Hydrogen Strategy is urgently needed, particularly if we are to capitalise on the UK’s technology base and direct investment towards the most effective uses of hydrogen. The Autumn Budget and Spending Review seems the ideal time to bring forward a strategy, will the Government commit to this and provide a significant boost to this sustainable fuel to help proceed along the critical path to net zero?”

Philip Dunne has asked for a reply from the Business Secretary by 2 September.

The letter is a result of an Inquiry into hydrogen from the EAC.  The  Committee had a session  where witnesses from the UK Hydrogen Fuel Cell Association, the UK Energy Catapult, Imperial College, London and Cadent gave oral evidence. The Committee also received 99 written submissions, including one from European Policy Solutions.  Our submission emphasised the importance of hydrogen in hard to decarbonise sectors; the need to move from demonstration projects to scalability and commercialisation and it outlined the development of strategies in the EU, the Netherlands and Germany.

This activity shows the growing interest of the UK Parliament in the production and uses of  hydrogen and the witness session showed a generally positive approach from MPs.