Winners of £60 million government competition to develop hydrogen as the superfuel of the future unveiled
HySupply 2 competition winners to receive government funding for innovation in hydrogen supply.
- £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 Kwasi Kwarteng 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