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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to increase the production of green hydrogen from offshore renewable energy.

My Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan confirmed our aim, working with industry, for 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030 for use across the economy.

The UK has abundant sources of renewable electricity, and the Prime Minister has made a further commitment to deploying 40 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, alongside further deployment of onshore wind.

Our ongoing work with stakeholders suggests there is a strong pipeline of electrolytic hydrogen projects ready to deploy in the 2020s, building on our existing investment in research and innovation to ensure we can achieve the scale up in low carbon hydrogen production necessary to meet our future energy needs.

The forthcoming UK Hydrogen Strategy will set out further detail on the role of hydrogen production technologies in meeting our 5GW ambition, including electrolytic projects using offshore and onshore wind as a primary electricity input. This ambition will be supported by a range of measures, including a £240 million Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, and our preferred long term, sustainable business model, which we will finalise in 2022. We will be consulting shortly on these measures, alongside the publication of the UK Hydrogen Strategy.