The UK hydrogen strategy is finally out. My take on it in this thread. gov.uk/government/new…
1) The hydrogen strategy rightly identifies hydrogen as a key ingredient for the energy transition especially in areas such as power, industry and parts of the transport sector.
2) As my quote on @BBCNews says “But, as the strategy admits, there won’t be significant quantities of low carbon hydrogen for some time. We need to use it where there are few alternatives and not as a like-for-like replacement of gas.” bbc.com/news/science-e…
3) Confusingly the @beisgovuk press release mentions 3 million homes to be powered by hydrogen every year by 2030, a number picked up by @JH_Ambrose@guardian in this piece. But this is not what the strategy says - it’s less than 70,000 homes by 2030. theguardian.com/environment/20…
4) On page 62 the hydrogen strategy states that the government expects <1 TWh of energy for heating to come from hydrogen by 2030. Current energy demand in the UK for space and hot water heating is 435 TWh according to Ofgem. So 1 TWh is 0.2%. That’s about 67,000 homes.
5) By 2035 up to 45 TWh of hydrogen for heating are expected in the strategy. That’s about 10% of total UK domestic heat demand using Ofgem figures.
6) The strategy shows that hydrogen for heating homes will not play a significant role before 2030. This means that for reducing emissions this decade, hydrogen will play only a very marginal role which is what we said previously in our @UKERCHQ report. ukerc.ac.uk/publications/n…
6) But we cannot wait until 2030 before bringing down emissions from heating. The urgency of the climate crisis requires bold policy action now. This means we need to continue with the roll-out of proven technologies now rather than wait another 10-15 years.
7) I agree that hydrogen is likely to play an important enabling role in a fully decarbonised power sector, through system flexibility that electrolytic production and hydrogen storage can provide and the potential for flexible power generation supporting RES.
9) Clearly hydrogen could play an important role in shipping and aviation. But the strategy mentions trucks and buses too. With technology evolving fast even for trucks it is not clear that hydrogen will be needed as battery technology improves rapidly. cleanenergywire.org/news/battery-e…
Just to be clear - I don't blame journalists for using the figure as it was prominently in the press release.
10) Obvious applications of low carbon hydrogen include those sectors where we currently use grey hydrogen based on unabated fossil fuels. In any strategy this should come top of the list as the @MLiebreich hydrogen ladder highlights.
12) As the documents are now all online I can share this screenshot showing expected hydrogen demand for different sectors. Note the 0-45 TWh range for heating indicating large uncertainties. Also note the very low amounts in 2030 for heating.
"No hydrogen use is modelled in cars or vans as current evidence suggests battery electrification is likely to be the preferred vehicle technology and the lowest cost route to zero emissions for cars and vans" the official technical analytical annex says. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
15) The total amount of hydrogen assumed to be used by 2050 is high - 20-35% of the UK’s energy consumption. This is significantly more than the @theCCCuk believes will be needed in its balanced pathway scenario.
16) The strategy adopts a twin track for blue and green hydrogen. Green should be the priority as blue is never 100% zero carbon. How much carbon benefit blue hydrogen could deliver is contested @david_joffe@mzjacobson@MLiebreich@gnievchenko.
Just to be clear: the mistake was clearly with the press release which was shared with journalists who may not have seen the actual strategy to be able to fact check. The government press release was subsequently amended but the damage was done.
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1) It is widely accepted that heat pumps will play a major role for decarbonising heating. But their running costs are usually higher than gas boilers. This is because we put most of the climate policy costs on electricity and almost none on fossil fuels.
1) Let’s take a step back to understand what’s going on here. The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) is a long-standing energy efficiency programme. The first variation of its kind started in 1994. 10 years ago I wrote my PhD thesis on it @ecioxford. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
2) ECO (or the Supplier Obligation as it is also known) has always supported installing new fossil fuel boilers. Especially during EEC 1+2 and CERT millions of condensing boilers were installed. This led to very large energy savings. centrica.com/media/1635/bg_…
Not only can we afford the costs of net zero but we will have to. The alternative is a disastrous and very costly future. Excellent piece by @jameskirkup@SMFthinktank@spectator.
1) The climate deniers lost the battle around the evidence base and failed with their attempts to discredit the science more than 10 years ago.
2) Unable to challenge climate science the deniers have now turned to the costs of net zero as the new battleground. On a weekly basis they attack policies driving decarbonisation as being unaffordable.
In recent weeks claims have been made that electrification of end uses doesn’t deliver carbon savings because it runs on dirty fossil fuel generation. I argue here that these arguments do not stack up and prolong the combustion of fossil fuels. Thread 1/n energymonitor.ai/tech/electrifi…
2) Estimating carbon savings associated with electrification is complex. A number of analysts have made admirable attempts to appraise emissions savings from a shift to EVs and heat pumps. These studies show electrification leads to significant reductions in carbon emissions.
3) The German media reported widely on research claiming electric cars that run on power generated by coal are no cleaner than petrol and diesel cars. @AukeHoekstra quickly debunked this.
The Fit for 55 package presented last week includes carbon pricing in the buildings sector through an ETS. This raises equity concerns that will need to be addressed or the project will fail. euractiv.com/section/climat…
2) Carbon revenues can also be used to lower policy legacy costs put on energy bills. This is what Germany is implementing. Revenues will be used to lower RES surcharges, relief measures for citizens and climate action support programmes. @cleanenergywirecleanenergywire.org/factsheets/ger…
Opponents of heat electrification often state heat pumps 'don't work in old buildings'. Not true says @JohnCantor2 dispelling this myth in his excellent article. And John knows - he has been designing & installing heat pumps since the 1980s. Thread 1/7 heatpumps.co.uk/2020/11/03/hea…
@JohnCantor2 2/7 First conclusion: “The right heat pump could be made to heat any building to any temperature we like. But the crux of the issue is the installation cost and the running cost.”
3/7 The question John says that we should ask is – “can we heat old buildings and achieve acceptable energy-efficiency?” His response: “Well… we probably can, and as time passes, it gets better.“