Utility Week

22 | JUNE 2021 | UTILITY WEEK Policy & Regulation Analysis Is hydrogen a contender or a distraction? Advocates of hydrogen as a heating fuel say it can fill the gaps left by heat pumps, but green groups say it has no place in the home. David Blackman weighs up the arguments. I t has become a bitter dividing line that inflames passions more intensely than any other topic in today's energy sec- tor. For those who don't spend every wak- ing hour on Twitter, we're talking of course about the great hydrogen versus heat pump debate. This issue is getting so much air-time cur- rently because advocates of the two energy sources are seeking to shape two key strategy documents, one covering heat and buildings and the other hydrogen – both of which are on the verge of publication. David Watson, head of energy transition at Cadent, urged the two camps to dial down the rhetoric at May's Utility Week Future of Heat conference. In his keynote comments, he said: "We definitely need to end the format wars. The constant argument about hydrogen versus heat pumps is unhelpful and is getting in the way of delivering both." However, the authors of a letter sent by green groups to business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng do not appear to be heeding this dovish message. The correspondence, which was coordi- nated by consultancy E3G and backed by the likes of Greenpeace, describes proposals to make the gas network hydrogen-ready as a "Trojan horse" for the continued use of fossil fuel for home heating. In particular, the letter urged the gov- ernment not to move ahead with blending hydrogen into natural gas in the national network or mandating the introduction of hydrogen-ready boilers. "With the best will in the world, we may not want the debate to be about molecules versus electrons but it is," says Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA). The bad feeling between the two camps partly stems from suspicions that many of the companies behind the push for hydrogen are the same fossil fuel companies that have pumped so much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere over the past century. "From the hydrogen side there are enor- mous vested interests," says Bean Beanland, president of the Ground Source Heat Pump Association. "From the electric side, the feel- ing is that they have had it their own way so it's time to move over. "The difficulty for the electric side is that fossil fuel hydrogen is very mature and incredibly well funded." For the gas industry the heart of the issue is that the push for electrification, spurred on by net zero, poses an existential threat to its existence and the infrastructure it has taken decades to develop, says Beanland. "The risk of stranded assets is huge, so there is a lot to play for and they feel they have to fight tooth and nail." Doug Parr, head of policy at Greenpeace UK, agrees: "The gas industry knows it's in a lot of trouble. It has nowhere to go under a genuinely zero carbon energy system and they want to preserve their existing assets and business models." Nothing to see here The EUA's Foster rejects the notion that the push to boost hydrogen production is just a plot by fossil fuel companies to prop up under-threat business models. The renewable energy and seawater, which are the resources required to make green hydrogen through electrolysis, can be found across the planet, he says. "This isn't lobbying by the gas networks in the UK; it's a global solution to a global problem." Furthermore, Foster says it would cost too much to increase the energy efficiency of heat pumps to the point where they were effective at heating all types of home. "If you genuinely believe you need a gas network because some homes are not suitable, by definition you must pump hydrogen into the gas network," he says. Clare Jackson, co-lead of the Hydrogen Taskforce Secretariat, argues that both tech- nologies will be required for home heating.

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