- £60 million competition will support innovation in the supply
of hydrogen, making new superfuel more viable
- funding will help position UK as world leader in this
emerging industry, boosting long term growth and helping produce
more clean, affordable, homegrown energy
- 28 projects in all 4 nations of the UK to receive share of
funding – powering forward an industry expected to create around
12,000 jobs
Companies at the cutting edge of hydrogen innovation will benefit
from up to £60 million of government funding, backing UK
development of hydrogen as an affordable, clean, homegrown energy
source.
The funding has been awarded to 28 projects across the UK,
including Scotland, Wales and the north of England and working
across a range of different sectors and technologies through the
Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply 2 (HySupply 2) competition.
This will support research and innovation in producing and
transporting hydrogen, making it a more viable and affordable
fuel for powering industry, including energy-intensive sectors
which rely on expensive fossil fuels.
It will also drive the UK hydrogen industry forward, reducing
costs, bringing new solutions to the market, and ensuring that
the UK continues to develop world-leading hydrogen technologies
here at home.
Among the 28 winning HySupply 2 projects are:
- ITM Power based in Yorkshire, which has been awarded more
than £9.2 million to build a next generation 5MW electrolyser
stack, an industrial tool which separates hydrogen from oxygen in
a vat of water using electricity. Building on their findings from
the first Hydrogen Supply programme, ITM are seeking to bring the
lowest-cost green hydrogen solution to the market
- Cadent Gas Limited in the West Midlands, which will receive
£296,174 for feasibility work focusing on how to purify hydrogen
that has been through the gas grid to make it suitable for use in
vehicles like lorries
- the National Nuclear Laboratory in Cumbria, which will
receive £242,619 to review and model processes that can use the
heat from nuclear reactors to produce hydrogen
In the British Energy Security Strategy published in April, the
government committed to boosting UK hydrogen capacity up to 10 GW
by 2030. This could create around 12,000 jobs across the UK as
well as increasing domestic energy supply, making the UK less
dependent on importing expensive fossil fuels in the future.
Business and Energy Secretary said:
The British Energy Security Strategy made clear that we are
backing hydrogen not just as a viable source of clean, affordable
homegrown energy but as an emerging industry of the future in
which the UK can lead the world.
This funding will accelerate the development of this exciting new
industry, helping position us as a hydrogen superpower on the
global stage.
This competition is part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, a
fund to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon
technologies, systems and business models.
A study commissioned by BEIS in 2018 demonstrated that innovation
in the hydrogen production process could reduce the cost of
producing hydrogen considerably. Funding from HySupply 2 will
help industry players to realise this goal.
This funding has been awarded after a competitive bidding process
to companies that demonstrated their potential to develop
feasible and innovative low-carbon hydrogen supply solutions.
Hydrogen is a clean energy source produced by separating it from
other elements in water or fossil fuels to create a gas or liquid
that can be used as a fuel. It has immense potential for
industry, heating homes and various forms of transport.
Notes to editors
- Funding for HySupply 2 comes from the Net Zero Innovation
Portfolio
- funding for Stream 1 winning companies will be awarded in 2
phases
- Stream 1 Phase 1 will support the development of feasibility
studies to test how ready technologies are, with companies
receiving up to £300,000 per project. Stream 1 Phase 2 will later
select projects from the Phase 1 group and support demonstrations
of the new technology at up to £6 million per project
- funding for Stream 2 has all been awarded through this
initial allocation
- the competition will support 28 projects. Stream 1 Phase 1
and Stream 2 respectively will support 23 projects (with 21
unique lead organisations) and 5 projects (5 lead organisations)
bringing their ideas closer to the marketplace
- Stream 1 feasibility support funding will go to 21 lead
organisations across the UK, including innovators based in
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and in several English regions
- a virtual Stakeholder Engagement Day was held on 8 June 2021
to provide an opportunity to understand more about the
competition and to ask questions
- visit the competition
webpage and the successful projects from
Stream 1 Phase 1 and Stream 2
