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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to safely introduce hydrogen into the heating system.

Transforming our heating system is one of the most difficult decarbonisation challenges facing the country. A range of technologies have potential to contribute to this, including heat networks, heat pumps, hydrogen and biogas. However, it is not yet clear which approaches will work best at scale.

In relation to hydrogen, the HyDeploy projects, funded by OFGEM, are looking to demonstrate the safety case for blending up to 20% hydrogen into the grid. Further work is also needed to better understand the potential for using hydrogen to fully replace methane in parts of the gas grid. Several relevant projects relevant to this are currently underway. These include projects run by gas network operators, and the £25m BEIS-funded Hy4Heat programme, which is investigating the feasibility of using hydrogen for heating in residential and commercial buildings.