You might have heard about new boilers being “hydrogen ready”. You may even have seen the gas pipes in your neighbourhood being replaced with modern yellow plastic ones. This is because the incumbent energy firms are making a determined effort to ensure the longevity of their business models (the provision of and burning of gas) once Natural Gas is phased out.

One way or another, the days of natural gas are limited. Production in the North Sea is falling. The replacement gas needs to be transported from Qatar or the USA on Liquified Natural Gas tankers and shipped to Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. Whilst an ingenious feat of engineering, it isn’t a sustainable business model, let alone sustainable for the environment.

There is a concerted effort to push the UK into Hydrogen as a replacement fuel. Now Hydrogen has some environmental benefits over Natural Gas at the point of burning (it only releases H2O – water) but it brings many problems as well.

Not least of which is that if there is a gas leak in your home this is a serious safety hazard.

National Infrastructure Commission

This is a complex area. So what do some impartial experts say? The National Infrastructure Commission, which is charged with carrying out an overall assessment of the UK’s infrastructure requirements once every five years, has recently delivered its verdict.

“Based on the Commission’s assessment of the evidence, there is no public policy case for hydrogen to be used to heat individual homes or other buildings. Government should therefore rule out supporting its deployment.”

National Infrastructure Commission, Oct 23

Interestingly, the underlying analysis was more damning for hydrogen than that headline assessment indicates. The Commission used 6 criteria (price, quality, delivery, environment, resilience and economy) to evaluate hydrogen. Against 5 criteria the case for hydrogen was assessed as negative, with one being neutral.

Not against one single criterion did Hydrogen receive a positive recommendation.

“Energy system costs are lower without hydrogen heating”

“More adverse environmental impacts with hydrogen heating”

“Coordination challenges are greater in pathways with hydrogen”

“Exposure to volatile natural gas markets could be higher with hydrogen heating”

National Infrastructure Commission, Oct 23

Interestingly the cost associated with hydrogen is not necessarily as high as some might have expected. Whilst “using electricity to produce hydrogen to then use in boilers to produce heat requires five to six times more electricity than using the same electricity directly in a heat pump….. a system with hydrogen heating would be around 1.2 times more expensive than a system without.”

This is because on a system level, additional factors come into play. One such factor is that “hydrogen heating reduces the direct use of electricity and peak electricity demand from heating”. The peak load is a critical factor, and anything which reduces the peak load requirement is positive.

How exactly this will all play out is uncertain at present.

There is certainly merit to the argument articulated by Mike Foster, the chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA) in a recent interview with the Guardian: “We will need a wide range of technologies to achieve net zero, heat pumps, heat networks and hydrogen boilers. That’s what current government policy states and that’s what we will work towards until told otherwise.”

However, at Brimstone Energy we come to a different conclusion, for somewhat different reasons.

Electrification is gathering a head of steam. Every home is already connected to the electricity network. Most homes have the ability to generate their own electricity, and almost every home can store its own electricity and thermal energy.

The electrification of domestic heating and transport is being rolled out now. Innovative British companies are delivering cutting edge solutions now.

Over the course of the next 10 years homes across the country will have installed a GivEnergy Ecosystem in conjunction with an electrified heating system.

Therefore, by the time the hydrogen industry is in a position to roll out hydrogen to homes across the country, the target market will have shrunk significantly.

And if we learn anything from the HS2 debacle, it is that whatever the UK government might profess to the contrary, the UK struggles to deliver major infrastructure projects.

National Grid and the District Network Operators need to upgrade the electricity grid anyway, and despite struggling to keep pace with the demand are actively working to develop and expand the network as we speak.

For all these reasons the electrification of heating seems a surer bet than the national roll out of hydrogen.

Brimstone Energy – For the Green Energy Transition.