Hydrogen Integration for Accelerated Energy Transitions

Aims and objectives

Overview

The UK Government has set out high expectations for the role of hydrogen in its future energy plans. It wants hydrogen to fulfil between 20%-35% of the UK's total energy demand. The UK currently produces around 27 TWh hydrogen each year. This would need to expand to 250 TWh by 2050 to meet even the minimum forecast expectations. 

Our project aims to better understand the requirements of all the stakeholders who can help accelerate this transition. Through our research, we want to develop a better understanding of the potential pathways for integrating hydrogen into future energy use.  

Introducing the project 

Professor Sara Walker from Newcastle University, Professor David Flynn from the University of Glasgow, and Professor Jianzhong Wu from Cardiff University were successful in their bid to UKRI to become a UK coordinator of the Hydrogen Integration for Accelerated Energy Transitions (HI-ACT) Centre. The Centre will work to deliver a fundamental shift in critical lifecycle analysis for optimisation of operational and planning decision support for the integration of hydrogen and alternative fuels into the UK energy landscape.

HI-ACT consortium will analyse the role of hydrogen and alternative liquid fuels in the context of the overall energy landscape, through the creation of robust tools which are investment-oriented in their analysis. A whole systems and systems integration approach is needed in order to better understand the interconnected and interdependent nature of complex energy systems, including hydrogen and alternative liquid fuels, from a technical, social, environmental and economic perspective.

HI-ACT Consortia Building

For the first six months starting from April 2022, the Centre will use this time to build high-impact, multi-disciplinary, multi-site teams, with the aim of building longer-term research alliances. The consortia will be a vibrant, diverse, and open community, and aspires to provide an unparalleled environment, respecting equality diversity and inclusion, to mentor and develop the next generation of research leaders.  

With the full spectrum of hydrogen, technologies and use cases, open to stakeholder feedback and evaluation, we want to co-create with stakeholders a national strategy that maximises the impact of hydrogen and alternative liquid fuels for UK priorities with respect to both national and international markets. This will involve identification of high priority investments, refining the evaluation criteria of an inclusive hydrogen and alternative liquid fuels energy transition, and prioritisation of a research strategy for maximum impact into addressing the barriers to a scalable economy.

The diversity of people we want to engage with to create a strategic and inclusive include, but aren’t limited to:

• end users (adopters)
• service companies
• operators/generators
• investors
• network operators
• regulators
• energy charities
• government policy makers 

We will aim to bring all stakeholders together through a series of focus groups to help identify the role of hydrogen and how the Centre can align its research to the current and future needs of hydrogen integration.

Tools

Five Step Approach to Hybrid-Virtual Engagement

• Step 1. Engagement Strategy: Set vision and level of ambition for future engagement, and review past engagements
• Step 2. Stakeholder mapping: Define criteria for identifying and prioritising stakeholders, and select engagement mechanisms
• Step 3. Preparation: Focus on long-term goals to drive the approach, determine logistics for the engagement and set the rules
• Step 4. Engagement: Conduct the engagement itself, ensuring equitable stakeholder contributions and mitigating tension while remaining focused on priorities
• Step 5. Action Plan: Identify opportunities from feedback and determine actions, revisit goals, and plan next steps for follow up and future engagement