Scottish Affairs Committee publishes UK gov response to hydrogen and carbon capture12 Jun 2023 17:23
Https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/136/scottish-affairs-committee/news/195578/scottish-affairs-committee-publishes-government-response-to-hydrogen-and-carbon-capture-report/
"17. We recommend that the UK Government alongside the Scottish Government
moves quickly to develop hydrogen storage, to meet increasing demand, help Scotland
and the rest of the UK enhance energy security and meet net zero targets.
The following is a combined response to recommendations 16 & 17:
The UK Government sees hydrogen storage, along with transport infrastructure as a
critical component of system architecture in the emerging hydrogen economy that will
enable the UK to enhance its energy security and help meet its net zero targets.
More broadly, hydrogen storage infrastructure is envisaged to be a strategic asset within
a fully decarbonised, net zero economy. In the British Energy Security Strategy, we
committed to designing a hydrogen storage business model (HSBM) by 2025, to support
the growth of the hydrogen economy [and have introduced amendments to the Energy
Bill to enable this]. 2025 is an ambitious but achievable timeline for designing complex
business models, which will need to provide both investor certainty and value for money
for UK government to support critical storage projects.
18. The UK Minister told us that the UK Government’s preference is for the private
sector to lead the development of storage infrastructure. For businesses to lead the
way in such a crucial aspect of Scotland and the UK’s net zero and energy security
ambitions, a clear set of regulatory conditions and economic incentives will be
required to encourage development at the pace needed. Therefore, we recommend that
in response to this report the UK Government establish an action plan to identify and
address economic and regulatory barriers for hydrogen storage to ensure that, once
large-scale hydrogen production becomes possible, appropriate storage is in place.
In line with UK Government’s commitment to design a HSBM by 2025, we published a
consultation in August 2022 seeking stakeholder views on barriers to investment in both
hydrogen transport and storage, and subsequent design options to help unlock private
sector investment. We are taking the views of respondents into account as we design the
HSBM, to ensure that the model addresses the identified technical and market barriers to
investment faced by industry.
The consultation also considered the suitability of the non-economic regulatory framework
across the hydrogen value chain, including storage. We will continue to use the UK
Hydrogen Regulators Forum, and engagement with industry, to identify and address
regulatory barriers to storage – in keeping with our Hydrogen Strategy ambitions.
We will provide a government response to this consultation by the end of Q2 2023."
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