Last week, Dr. Nick Cooper, CEO at Storegga said, “The UK now has the opportunity to lead the world in establishing a thriving decarbonisation industry, which includes the production of greener energy sources like hydrogen, and the capturing and removal of CO2 from industry and the atmosphere.” 

Read more: UK Energy Bill announcement gives hope of green hydrogen scale up 

There has been emphasis on hydrogen being at the forefront of the Bill, with support documents from the Government stating, “Developing Carbon Capture Usage and Storage and low carbon hydrogen will create new industries, transforming our former industrial heartlands.” 

This also included ‘state-of-the-art business models’ for hydrogen and enabling ‘the first ever large-scale hydrogen heating trial, allowing us to inform the role of hydrogen in heat decarbonisation in 2026.’ 

Adding to industry reaction was Mike Foster, CEO at the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA), who said, “We welcome an Energy Bill designed to promote Carbon Capture and Storage and help deliver large scale hydrogen heating trials. 

“We need to urgently shift away from fossil fuel gas to hydrogen, using the world-class gas networks already underground to supply our homes and businesses.” 

In addition, the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA), the trade body for the Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) industry, welcomed the announcement. 

Ruther Herber, Chief Executive at the CCSA said, “we are pleased to see the emphasis on levelling up – we hope to see empowerment of local leaders in the development of net zero industrial clusters, given the associated jobs and economic benefits that will be created.” 

The CCSA stated they would like to see legislative proposals to enable CCUS, which included, ‘Enabling the repurposing of existing assets for net zero activities including CCUS and hydrogen’.