The UK can draw on its “world leading” role in developing the cluster concept and its success in growing its offshore wind sector as it sets out to deliver both blue and green hydrogen production at scale, according to Jane Toogood, the UK government’s independent expert adviser on hydrogen and chief executive of catalyst technologies at UK technology company Johnson Matthey.

“We need a clear roadmap forward. To meet the net-zero target we have in the UK, we need hydrogen in the mix. We need clear pathways forward and certainty around that, and ideally a funding envelope as well, just as has been identified for CCUS,” she told Hydrogen Economist in an interview. “Our goal here should be about decarbonisation and then rapidly learning. We have got a lot to do over the next couple of decades.”

“The beauty of the cluster concept is that it combines multiple potential offtakers and enables you to decarbonise industry en bloc” Toogood, government expert adviser

As part of her role as “hydrogen champion”, Toogood delivered a detailed set of independent recommendations to the government in March that she said have “broadly speaking been adopted”.

Central to the UK’s strategy is the development of industrial clusters with blue hydrogen and CCS, with plans for permanent storage in the North Sea. Toogood highlights the cluster concept as one of the UK’s key strengths.

“This is where the UK remains a world leader,” she said, citing work undertaken by the World Economic Forum on hubs and clusters, which draws partly on the UK’s strategy. “The beauty of the cluster concept is that it combines multiple potential offtakers and enables you to decarbonise industry en bloc.” Potentially, industries may in future relocate to where hydrogen supply is available, further supporting the hub concept, she adds.

The development of clusters received a boost in May when the UK awarded 20 North Sea offshore carbon storage appraisal licences to 12 project developers.

Toogood said the UK should not get distracted by trying to compete head on with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the US. The IRA offers highly attractive tax credits to low-carbon hydrogen projects and has started to attract investment away from other regions, including Europe, prompting calls for policymakers outside of the US to respond.

“The UK does not have to compete completely with the IRA. It is an amazing piece of legislation for driving hydrogen forward, but the UK has the potential to reduce risk and provide certainty for projects using a contract for difference (CFD) business model—we did so well with offshore wind. We just need to move faster now.”

Technology agnostic

Scaling up hydrogen production at pace is crucial, and Toogood said this is recognised in the UK’s “technology agnostic” approach, which calls for both CCS enabled and electrolytic production. “We need to be deploying hydrogen projects at scale—if we do not do that, we will not get the learnings you need to really involve industries foster the supply chain, so that means both CCS enabled and electrolytic at scale, both routes will help drive decarbonisation,” she said.

The government has ramped up its plans to support the development of electrolytic hydrogen by tripling the capacity target for its second-round subsidy allocation, due to launch in the fourth quarter. The second round has the ambition to award support for up to 750MW of new hydrogen production capacity, up from 250MW in the first round, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said in a recent consultation paper.

Toogood’s role as hydrogen champion comes as Johnson Matthey expands rapidly in the hydrogen technology sector, supplying both the electrolytic and CCS-enabled sectors.  In May, it signed a deal to supply membrane electrode assemblies to Norwegian electrolyser manufacturer Hystar. In March, it signed a technology licence deal for H2H Saltend, one of the UK’s largest CCS-enabled hydrogen projects.

“We see a bright future for both production routes,” Toogood said.

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Author: Stuart Penson