Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance
A new government can grasp the opportunity to ditch old policies and signal change. Whoever wins the election will do this. Gone will be the “all-electric heat” scenario, except for a few dinosaurs that is. A mixed, whole energy system, will be one that offers the solution to the much vaunted energy trilemma. We will need both electricity and gas solutions to achieve net zero in the most affordable manner. Academics, industry experts, and yes, Whitehall too is coming to this conclusion.
So clean gas is here to stay. Without doubt, hydrogen will be key in delivering clean gas options to homes, but also to meet industry and transport needs. Starting with industrial processes, requiring the heat that gas delivers, hydrogen supplied to gas networks will also allow a switch from dirty diesel for heavy loads, such as HGVs, buses, and trains.
But the genuine excitement is around clean gas in the home. The development of hydrogen-ready boilers, capable of a swift switchover from natural to clean gas, makes mass conversion a realistic proposition. Industry has led the way and now awaits the nod from government to get going.
Clean gas is not just carbon free for meeting net zero ambitions, it also removes the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning in the home. However rare, this silent killer can be dealt a fatal blow by switching to clean gas.
Lower NOx emissions are now being experienced when testing hydrogen boilers. The public are concerned about air quality issues, just look at what has happened to diesel car sales. Well, the flexibility offered by the gas networks, with the innovative work of the boiler manufacturers, has offered up a solution even before the public realise there is a problem.
Governments, of whatever political persuasion, love “oven-ready” solutions. Here is the gas industry, collectively, offering one up for them.
Dr Richard Lowes, research fellow, University of Exeter Energy Policy Group and UK Energy Research Centre
There is little doubt that for UK heating to get to net-zero emission levels, the majority of heat must shift from using fossil fuels towards using low carbon electricity, with heat pumps and heat networks used to maximise the efficiency of the system. There is also a requirement for a buildings’ energy efficiency programme at the same time. We can do this now, and we should start straight away.
Yet heavy lobbying by elements of the gas industry has tried to sow doubts about low-carbon heat technologies (by the way, heat pumps DO work, check out Sweden) while at the same time promoting technologies which protect their own interests such as biogas, but more importantly, hydrogen. As the “green gas” influencing drive has taken place, hydrogen has rapidly risen up the policy agenda, reminding me of the push for “clean coal” to protect coal generation a decade ago.
Only hydrogen produced from methane alongside carbon capture appears cost effective compared to electrification but huge uncertainties remain around costs, carbon credentials and technical feasibility. Using green electricity to produce hydrogen to replace gas wholesale would be prohibitively expensive compared to using that electricity in heat pumps.
Meanwhile, the costs of renewable electricity, particularly offshore wind, have fallen to a level no-one expected. Electricity is decarbonising. You can buy a heat pump off Ebay.
That’s not to say heat decarbonisation is easy socially or politically. Changes to people’s homes and streetworks will be required whatever happens, but with the falling costs of renewables, storage and electric vehicles, and developments in smart systems, electrifying everything is becoming an even more obvious strategy.
Where a major question does remain is in how the larger weekly, monthly and seasonal variations in heat demand can be balanced. Clearly some form of strategic storage will be required and hydrogen currently seems like a contender for this.
What is still up for debate is how that hydrogen storage is integrated into the system. While some are pushing for hybrid appliances (heat pumps combined with a boiler running on hydrogen) which use gas at times of high demand or high prices and which necessitate the maintenance of a gas grid and gas appliances, it is possible that a more simple approach is to expand the capacity of the power system (which is likely to be expanded anyway).
Under this model, a heat pump-based approach is supported by a bigger electricity system which provides peak demand through the generation of power from hydrogen. Either way, this is basically “electrification plus”.