The UK’s long-awaited hydrogen strategy, released today (August 17), is quick to admit that low carbon hydrogen will be essential to achieve net zero by 2050, as well as meeting the country’s world-leading Carbon Budget 6 (CB6) target by 2035. The strategy continues to state the considerable statistics associated with meeting said targets.
Analysis by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) suggested that by 2050, hydrogen could need to represent 20-35% of the UK’s final energy consumption to reach previously pledged targets; a huge statistic when considering the UK’s current low carbon hydrogen production is low. In addition, the majority of current hydrogen production is produced using natural gas and centred around the chemical and refinery industry. If hydrogen is to contribute to the UK’s journey to net zero, ‘high carbon’ will need to become a distant memory.
Read more: First-ever UK Hydrogen Strategy aims to create a hydrogen economy worth £13bn by 2050
The strategy highlights some great elements of the opportunity for hydrogen within the UK, such as the fact that the country boasts the highest generation of electricity from offshore wind than any other country in the world. Followed by plans set out by The Energy White Paper in 2020 to quadruple offshore wind capacity to 40GW by 2030.
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