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Introduction
This series of papers from the Green Steve’s is to discuss key elements of the green agenda in the context of local government and to highlight opportunities for action. In that context, the subject of hydrogen might be seen as marginal. That might be the case, but this is not a view shared by every Council – take Aberdeen City Council as an example
Notwithstanding whether it will feature heavily in decarbonisation plans, it is nonetheless vital for local government to understand the potential for what hydrogen can do, as well as illustrating areas where is it unlikely to play any major part. In this context, the views of the Government and the Climate Change Committee are in sharp contrast.
In this paper there is a basic explanation of what hydrogen is and what it does, as well as consideration of its role in the UK’s decarbonisation process. There is a look at the development of a hydrogen sector and then the all important analysis of its relevance to local government. There are not many examples from the local government arena that can be considered, but some are included at the end.

Background
The UK has a rich industrial heritage stretching way back to the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1750’s. That Industrial Revolution made the UK a world leader in industrialisation and is the foundation of the modern world. In fact, hydrogen has always played a part in that industrial process of development and continues to do so today.
However, a completely new context has now arisen from the climate change agenda. Hydrogen is seen as a potential ally in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and assisting to decarbonise some of the hard to treat areas. Notwithstanding this, there is still a fierce debate about whether a move towards significantly higher hydrogen production is a good thing or not.
Types of Hydrogen and Its Uses
Those who have not followed the path of hydrogen development closely would be forgiven for getting confused when green, blue or even pink hydrogen is mentioned. So as a starting point it is worth clarifying some terms and being clear as to what uses hydrogen can be put to. Edie has published an excellent guide in this regard – Hydrogen for Net Zero – as part of the Edie Explains series.
This confirms that how hydrogen is made largely depends on the type of power source used. In simple terms:
- Blue hydrogen is created using fossil fuels, normally via steam methane reformation, producing hydrogen and CO2 as a by product
- Green hydrogen is created using renewable energy via a different process of electrolysis
- Pink hydrogen also uses electrolysis but this time the power comes from nuclear energy.
There are a variety of other colours in this rainbow (grey – using steam reformation from fossil fuels; turquoise – using methane pyrolysis; and yellow – from solar power) but the extent of different colours is largely irrelevant. The fact is that it all comes down to a few simple questions:
- What source does the energy come from to create the hydrogen?
- How much does this cost?
- How does it compare with other competing sources of low carbon energy?
- Can it be stored and if so how?
As has been seen elsewhere in the green agenda, the fossil fuel companies have realised that this is a way that they can avoid being seen to be on the dark side, principally by hydrogen production using CCUS (carbon capture, use and storage). The argument is that we should start by generating hydrogen (which is good) from fossil fuels, just to get the market going. A sort of ‘don’t let perfect be the enemy of good’ argument. But is this realistic?
Even when renewable energy is used to create carbon, its viability and cost has to be considered. Here the Climate Change Committee has said that in many applications it is simply better to use the electricity directly, than to use that electricity to generate hydrogen to then use as fuel. Perhaps using surplus energy (particularly from offshore wind farms that have been stood down from the grid) would be the answer?
The outcome is likely to be somewhere in between.

Hydrogen in the UK’s Decarbonisation Plans
As ever, a look is required at the Government’s policy agenda. As has been the case before, as the calls for hydrogen to play a larger role in decarbonisation plans grew, it became clear that the Government needed a strategy. It took until August 2021 to prepare that document, back when Kwasi Kwatang was Secretary of State at BEIS.
This confirmed that hydrogen would be ‘critical’ to the UK’s transition to net zero, particularly as a versatile replacement for high carbon fuels in areas such as power, heat and transport. The Government’s legally binding target to reach net zero by 2050 for England is looking more and more difficult to achieve and hydrogen is seen as a useful weapon in that battle. Extra firepower will undoubtedly be required to meet the Sixth Carbon Budget with a 78% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (bearing in mind that the UK is not currently on course to meet either the Fourth or Fifth Carbon Budgets).
At the time of the Strategy, the UK adopted a target of developing 5 GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030. However, in the Energy Security Strategy published in April 2022 this ambition was increased to 10 GW of production capacity.
The policy agenda recognises that hydrogen will need significant help to develop fully. This will include financial assistance, where a system loosely based on the CFD is being considered, to new business models and other measures that will create the policy stability that is required to attract significant private sector investment over coming years.
The dilemma that the Government has is the issue mentioned above, essentially the offers by the fossil fuel companies to get involved. They are claiming CCUS as the ‘silver bullet’ but more sanguine and realistic views are available about the potential for the technology. For now, the Government is supporting both green and blue hydrogen production.
Before leaving the policy agenda, is worth highlighting that BEIS forecasts (made prior to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero being created) are that 20% – 35% of the UK’s energy consumption in 2050 could be met with hydrogen. This contrasts sharply with the views of the Climate Change Committee, which seems to see hydrogen in a much more ancillary role. Whilst it recognises that the technology can be used for sectors that are hard to decarbonise and for energy storage, its modelled scenarios show a vastly reduced role. As Edie points out, “in these scenarios hydrogen claims just a 3% share of final energy generation in 2050, compared to 52% for low carbon electricity. For transport, hydrogen would account for 4% of the overall market and 5% for industrial uses (compared to 53% for electricity).”
It seems that there is still considerable uncertainty as to how hydrogen’s role will pan out.

Development of Hydrogen Sector
As mentioned, the Government published its Hydrogen Strategy in 2021. Recognising the need for private investment in the market, the development of the offshore wind sector was seen as useful guide. There, significant amounts of early Government funding had unlocked a treasure chest of private investment, which has resulted in a world leading operation and also the plummeting of costs of new developments.
Accordingly, a combination of the Government’s Ten Point Plan and the Energy Security and Hydrogen Strategies have earmarked a significant pot of money to fund hydrogen’s development. This includes a £240m Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, where the Government is still deciding how to allocate funds. Also included was up to £500m to develop a Hydrogen Neighbourhood in 2023 and a Hydrogen Village by 2025. This may see the first entire town running on hydrogen as opposed to natural gas as a pilot project.
The policy agenda has created significant interest, both amongst those supporting renewable energy and also the fossil fuel companies. The latter see this as a way of staying in business and shaping the hydrogen agenda to continue playing an important part. After all, if CCUS fails but hydrogen is still required and there is insufficient green hydrogen being generated, where else will it come from?
Cost will also be a big factor. Even those who would discount blue hydrogen production at this stage on environmental grounds would admit that it makes little sense to generate expensive green hydrogen in its place. As Edie points out, the European Commission currently notes that green hydrogen costs between $3 and $6.55 (US dollars) per kg to generate, whereas fossil fuelled production is only $1.80 by comparison. Hence the arguments, lets support blue hydrogen for now.

The Relevance of Hydrogen to Local Authorities
If a Council’s renewable energy officer is considering hydrogen, they might think that it is well down the order of priority in terms of keeping up with developments. But ‘projects’ is not the only area where hydrogen will have an influence. This section looks at some of those areas.

Regulatory Roles
Local authorities have a number of different regulatory roles, but town & country planning and health & safety are important amongst them.
Looking at the planning function, it is predictable that there have been claims to make the planning system easier for new hydrogen projects. These are parallel, of course, to similar claims for other areas, such as wind, solar and battery storage. In a report published by Renewable UK (Planning for Onshore Green Hydrogen) it said the current planning system is “too slow, complex and difficult to navigate for developers.”
There is much support for this view from across the green agenda and so this is nothing new. But hydrogen is a nascent technology that is swiftly developing and it is important that local planning authorities have some understanding of what it is and how it works. That makes determining planning applications much swifter and easier. As usual, there is a key educative role in this part of the green agenda.
Diverting to onshore wind briefly, there is a suggestion that the planning rules will be changed shortly to remove or reduce the barriers introduced in 2018. One of these involves ‘zoning’ in the Local Plan. This issue is relevant here too, as if the Council has undertaken proper preparatory work in its Local Development Plan it will be clear on what type of renewable energy development will be appropriate in different parts of its locality. Such work is becoming more important and not just for hydrogen.
For the energy officers, it may fall to them to assist the planners in understanding the developments proposed and how they will fit within the climate change plans and strategies. Similarly, advising Members who favour being chosen as a hydrogen neighbourhood with Government funding. So a watching brief on this area is essential.

Local Authority Assets
Local authorities also have a considerable amount of land and buildings and are considering on an active basis how renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy use can be improved.
In our view, suggestions that natural gas will simply be replaced in the gas network by hydrogen are well wide of the mark. There are technical reasons for this (Hydrogen is four times the volume of natural gas), boilers would need to be replaced or retrofitted to take hydrogen and the fuel itself has to be generated (back to green or blue and cost).
The Climate Change Committee has confirmed that it sees hydrogen playing only a supporting role in heating with heat pumps being the favourite low carbon methodology of heating systems.

Transport
There can be no doubt that transport has a stronger case to make for the introduction of hydrogen. However, this is not in the case of cars or light vehicles – which is another area of confusion – but heavier vehicles. For the cars and vans, electric is the chosen solution and millions of pounds has been spent bringing this to fruition and that is not going to change.
Large vehicles present a different problem. A Council will have a commercial fleet that will go from cars at the lightest end to refuse freighters / buses and lorries / tractors at the top end. For those vehicles, electrification is a much harder route, largely due to the sheer size and weight of the batteries required.
Hydrogen is without doubt a better solution – if the hydrogen can be created without generating more greenhouse gases. This has already been proved with hydrogen buses which are fuelled at the depot and can then operate normally. The by product of burning hydrogen in buses is water vapour, which has no carbon footprint. There are also other benefits, not least to air quality, which is another important area to local authorities.
So we can expect more development in this field.

Economic Development
This will be another area of interest. Local authorities are critically sensitive to the health and vitality of the local economy. Generally, anything that can provide jobs and growth is welcome.
Here, the Government money and private investment is being directed towards new areas for hydrogen development. An example is Stratera and its announcement that it will develop a 3 GW green hydrogen project in Aberdeenshire, harnessing surplus Scottish wind power in the process.
Another example is Carlton Power, an energy infrastructure development company, which has received Government funding to create projects in Trafford in Greater Manchester, Barrow in Furness in Cumbria and Langage near Plymouth. This latter project for a green hydrogen hub will be helpful to the Plymouth economy, being based at the Plymouth and South Devon Freeport. These so called ‘clusters’ of investment have been hard fought to be set up, but should provide significant economic development for the successful areas.
Further rounds of Government funding and private sector investment can be expected and those wanting to take advantage of this should be ready.

Local Authority Investment
Local authorities up and down the country have looked at investing in renewable energy. The favourite is solar power, with over 20 solar farms now owned and operated by local authorities. Others have gone for wind (notably Bristol City Council) and with the proposed changes to the planning barriers, this may well cause a resurgence in that area. But will there be a clamour for investment in hydrogen?
This seems less likely unless the technology is twinned with something else, such as a solar or wind farm. A similar conclusion has been drawn for some time on offshore wind investment, which is not really an area touched by local authorities either.
The smart projects will be those that can harmonise one or more technologies, whilst supporting the Council’s climate change strategy or climate emergency declaration. Perhaps an example would be a solar farm generating electricity that fuels an electrolysis process to generate hydrogen to be used to fuel the Council’s refuse collection fleet. It is likely that more projects of this type will emerge over time. For now, Aberdeen City Council is one of the leading authorities in this area, as discussed in next section.
Examples from Local Government
As mentioned in previous section, hydrogen is a nascent technology and very much in its infancy. However, there is some local authority activity.
The best example is Aberdeen City Council which recognised the potential value in hydrogen some years ago and has established itself as a centre for excellence in both hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. In 2015 it established a fleet of 10 hydrogen buses, followed by a further 15 double decker vehicles. It has introduced both light and heavy vehicles into its fleet and operates two public hydrogen charging stations in its area.
Another example is Merseytravel, which is the strategic transport adviser to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, once again involving hydrogen buses. This project saw 20 double decker buses introduced to the streets of the City Region, together with new refuelling facilities, creating a first for the North West.
As the Government funding is distributed and other local authorities benefit from developments in their areas, this type of progress is likely to be repeated elsewhere. Where Aberdeen possibly has an advantage is the potential for surplus offshore wind generated electricity to be available for hydrogen production. This circumvents the costs issues mentioned in previous section

Conclusions
The Green Steve’s regularly identify key areas of the climate change agenda and advise that this area is one where every Council needs to show an awareness and knowledge of the issues.
This time, a watching brief might be a better conclusion to draw but it would not be sensible to discount hydrogen from the mix of solutions to climate change. As the Climate Change Committee has pointed out, whilst its role may not be as extensive as some are predicting, it will have a role to play. This is likely to be in relation to heavy industry, transport and aviation, but will affect other areas of local government.
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