Moving hydrogen forward in UK will require collaboration: conference panelists

Moving UK hydrogen from planning to implementation is top of mind for many in the industry, who know the road will involve both lessons from past projects and collaboration moving forward, panelists said Sept. 2.

On the heels of the UK government's Aug. 17 release of its hydrogen strategy, industry leaders gathered at the UK CCUS & Hydrogen Decarbonization Summit in Birmingham to discuss ways to bring carbon capture and storage projects forward.

Challenges range from agreeing on carbon intensity standards to finding skilled labor for a host of projects slated for completion this decade, said Jane Atkinson, executive director at Bilfinger.

"We've got the policy – the policy is net-zero," Atkinson said. "The question is collectively, how do we do it?"

Many UK project developers are working in more than one project drawing some historic rivals into a more collaborative relationship, James Watt, hydrogen lead at WSP, said.

Agreement on CO2 standards need to be reached not just in the UK, but internationally, Watt said.

"There need to be a defined standard to keep people honest and pushing innovators to what we can do," he said. "We need a standardized way of doing it because people do it in a different way."

Lessons learned by projects successful in bidding for UK government funding must be shared to maximize progress and aid project development, panelists added.

"Pitching clusters against one another mustn't create a situation where lessons learned are not shared [but] you've got to have that competitive element - otherwise you lose the innovation drive," Stephen Marcos Jones, director general of the UKPIA said.

Getting the public on board remains a challenge particularly around CCS projects, which have faced some criticism around methane leakage, along with the costs involved.

BEIS 'color agnostic' on hydrogen

The UK sees blue hydrogen, including development of CCS technology, as an important steppingstone in its decarbonization ambitions.

"We are color agnostic -- we know hydrogen has an absolutely critical part to play for net zero efforts and hydrogen is a core part of the roadmap," said Stephen Cummings head of industrial decarbonization at the UK's Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy. "The ambition is 5GW hydrogen production by 2030, but it is reliant on a lot of things being in place. CCS is an important part of that."

Opportunities also exist for hydrogen produced in the UK to be exported to Continental Europe, said Kevin Kinsella, partner of low carbon energy transition at ERM.

Kinsella provided an update on the Dolphyn project, which received GBP3 million ($4.15 million) in 2020 in UK funding for a floating wind project to produce green hydrogen off the coast of Scotland.

Dolphyn is working with ports in Continental Europe on the possibility of shipping hydrogen as a liquid organic hydrogen carrier vessel at scale.

Ports have expressed interest in storing hydrogen at pressure in conventional oil facilities, Kinsella said.