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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to support the hydrogen sector across the UK.

The UK Hydrogen Strategy reaffirms the Government’s aim to have 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity in the UK by 2030. In the strategy, the Government lays the foundations for a thriving hydrogen economy by 2030, setting out how the Government will support innovation and stimulate investment to rapidly scale up low carbon hydrogen production and use across the economy this decade.

The Government has announced that it will set up the Industrial Decarbonisation and Hydrogen Revenue Support scheme (IDHRS), which will support both electrolytic (‘green’) and CCUS enabled (‘blue’) low carbon hydrogen production. The Government will be providing up to £140 million to establish the scheme, including up to £100 million to award contracts of up to 250MW of electrolytic hydrogen production capacity in 2023 with further allocation in 2024. This means that 500MW of electrolytic hydrogen production projects will be operational or in construction by 2025. The Government will also announce the revenue envelope for CCUS-enabled hydrogen and industrial carbon capture in 2022, which will allow contracts, from 2023, to be awarded for up to 1GW of CCUS-enabled hydrogen.

In the coming months the Government will launch the £240 million Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, the first £100 million allocation round for electrolytic hydrogen projects and publish a sector roadmap with a focus on investment, in addition to a Sector Development Action Plan.