A third pilot project to test the use of hydrogen heating in homes has been shelved by the UK government in the clearest sign to date that households will rely on electricity for low-carbon heating in the coming decades.
The government said it would shelve plans to develop a “hydrogen town” to test whether hydrogen could help to heat homes at scale before taking a final decision after 2026.
The decision comes after the government abandoned plans for two smaller “hydrogen village” trials – in Redcar, on Teesside, and at a village near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire – after months of strong opposition from concerned residents who feared they may become unwilling “lab rats” for a technology that would never take off in the UK.
The government said in a statement that it still believed that low-carbon hydrogen “may have a role to play” in cutting emissions from the UK’s heating sector, alongside heat pumps and low-carbon heat networks, “but in slower time in some locations”.
“We plan to take a decision in 2026 on whether, and if so how, hydrogen will contribute to heating decarbonisation,” it said.
The government is due to make a decision about whether its net zero climate plans will include replacing household gas with hydrogen by 2026. It will assess evidence from a pilot in Fife in Scotland, and similar schemes in Europe.
Many experts, including the government’s infrastructure tsars, believe that the UK should focus its efforts on electric heating options, such as heat pumps, while hydrogen should be reserved for use in heavy industry, which is not always able to use electricity.
Juliet Phillips, the head of UK energy at E3G, an independent climate change thinktank, said the government’s decision had made clear “that all attention and investment should be focused on readily available clean heat solutions, like heat pumps and heat networks.
“Discussions on hydrogen for heating are an unhelpful distraction that muddy the waters on the future of how we heat our homes,” she said. “Widespread use of hydrogen for heating is widely understood to be an extremely expensive and inefficient way to meet net zero targets, which could exacerbate fuel poverty.”
Jess Ralston, the head of energy at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit , said the decision would pave the way for more investment into heat pumps, which boost energy security by lowering the amount of gas the UK needs to import, as output from the North Sea continues to decline.
“The US and Europe are already installing heat pumps in their millions in response to the gas crisis that has already cost the UK over £100bn, and it looks like we might be starting to catch up,” she said.
