The UK government has requested consultations for views on hydrogen transport and storage infrastructure business models, as well as regularity arrangements for strategic planning and the role of blending. The announcement follows the government’s commitment to the British Energy Security Strategy (BESS) to create new business models for hydrogen transportation and storage infrastructure by 2025.
The consultation opened to contributions on August 31st and will close on November 22nd. The UK Government wishes to receive contributions for design options for hydrogen transport and storage, infrastructure business models, the need for strategic planning function to assist the rollout of hydrogen transport and storage infrastructures, investigation of whether the existing market framework and industry commercial arrangements are optimal for supporting hydrogen transport and storage infrastructure, the appropriateness of the non-economic regulatory framework across the hydrogen value chain and the extent to which blending might help provide market building benefits from the hydrogen economy.
The aim is to gain the interest of hydrogen economy stakeholders including hydrogen producers, hydrogen consumers, gas transporters, gas shippers, storage operators, investors, consumer champions, trade associations, and academics.
The request for consultations comes after pressure from leading industry representatives to develop hydrogen transport and storage in the UK.
Addressing the question of why they are requesting consultations, the UK government says: ‘Hydrogen can support the decarbonisation of the UK economy, particularly in ‘hard to electrify’ UK industrial sectors, and can provide greener, flexible energy across power, transport and potentially heat. For these reasons, the British Energy Security Strategy (BESS) government doubled its ambition to up to 10GW of new low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, subject to affordability and value for money with at least half of this coming from electrolytic hydrogen production.’
Their vision for hydrogen transport and storage infrastructure builds upon their Hydrogen Strategy roadmap, whereby the UK Government wishes to reach a large, liquid, and competitive hydrogen market, connected to numerous hydrogen storage facilities.
