Future of Hydrogen Heating in Industry
We have been asked to approach our members and encourage them to complete the following within two weeks. This survey is endorsed by the BSSA and will assist in developing Government policy for the green economy:
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is working with industry and regulators to deliver a range of research, development and testing projects to assess the feasibility, costs and benefits of using 100% hydrogen for heat. The evidence generated will inform strategic decisions in 2026 on the role of low carbon hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas heating, which will help determine whether and the extent to which parts of the gas grid are repurposed or decommissioned in the longer-term. For more information on this area of policy, please see the UK Hydrogen Strategy which was published in August 2021.
We have developed this questionnaire to explore the opportunities and challenges of switching from natural gas to hydrogen in industrial sites across Great Britain. The questionnaire is mainly multiple choice and will cover (1) current uses of natural gas, (2) site specific characteristics and (3) broader decarbonisation activity. The final part of the questionnaire focuses on using blends of hydrogen. We are interested in hearing from sites irrespective of the progress towards decarbonisation, as all input will be valuable to us and will help scope and plan future phases of work with respect to hydrogen heating.
One key purpose of this questionnaire is to identify sites that are interested in in participating in one of 5-10 fully-funded hydrogen feasibility studies, with the sites chosen to provide a cross-section of industry. These studies will be used to develop an initial, high-level understanding of the costs, feasibility and impacts associated with converting industrial sites and industrial processes from natural gas to 100% hydrogen. This will be key to helping to determine the future role of hydrogen in decarbonising heat across industry and any expected issues, as well as providing useful information to the site studied. These feasibility studies do not require sites to have previously done any work on decarbonisation but will require access to: the site, site personnel and key site documentation to support a thorough feasibility study.
The questionnaire responses and the feasibility studies will also help support planning and scoping for potential demonstrations of industrial processes switching from natural gas to 100% hydrogen, as well as other potential Hydrogen enabling work. Further site studies, demonstrations and enabling work have not been confirmed yet. Any work on demonstrations would be more involved for the industrial applicant, so through the questionnaire we are also seeking to understand what the likely interest there is in supporting this in industry.
Hydrogen Heating Survey Link:
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=BXCsy8EC60O0l-ZJLRst2KrAEW2z3VVChY-W7l_bIFJUMTFYSTVTTVJKU0pGM09GWjIxNU1KQ1pSWi4u
As the appropriate trade association for the steel industry my hope would be that you could distribute this survey to your members over the next few days and encourage them to fill it out. My intent would be for your members to complete this within 2 weeks of having received the questionnaire. The questionnaire will be open for a period of time beyond the 2-week window, to help catch late responses, however we do want to get on with planning the next steps, so prompt responses would be very much appreciated.
The questionnaire is targeted at industrial sites that currently use natural gas, it also has some high-level technical questions so an awareness of the processes and equipment onsite would be advantageous.
