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 produce hydrogen in a low-carbon emissions form.

The Government is undertaking activity to accelerate the development of low carbon hydrogen at scale and understand its potential to deliver clean growth.

We have provided up to £20m funding through our Hydrogen Supply Innovation Programme. This programme is funding a range of projects in low carbon hydrogen, zero carbon hydrogen and energy storage. These projects together could work towards reducing the cost of low carbon hydrogen.

In addition, our Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) Action Plan sets out how we will meet our ambition of having the option to deploy CCUS at scale during the 2030s, subject to costs coming down sufficiently. With current technologies CCUS is needed to produce low carbon hydrogen at scale. The Action Plan is designed to enable the first CCUS facility in the UK, commissioning from the mid-2020s.

The Hydrogen Supply Innovation Programme and CCUS Action Plan are important steps towards assessing the potential for producing low carbon hydrogen at scale. These developments will help with assessing the potential for hydrogen power alongside alternative technologies that could support the UK’s decarbonisation efforts.