The Clean Hydrogen Accelerator Helping to Secure UK’s Energy Supply

The Carbon Trust has announced its new Clean Hydrogen Accelerator. Hydrogen Industry Leaders talks to The Carbon Trust about the Clean Hydrogen Accelerator and how it aims to help secure the UK’s energy supply and support climate targets.

The project will join up industry players backed by BEIS. The Clean Hydrogen Innovation Programme (CHIP) aims to speed up the deployment of clean hydrogen by reducing the end cost through technical innovation so that it becomes cost competitive with conventional alternatives.

For this accelerator, the model used will follow the same approach as other successful collaborative innovation programmes by the Carbon Trust.

Carbon Trust’s Accelerator Is Aiming To Be Cost Competitive With Alternatives

Hydrogen Industry Leaders spoke to Serene Esuruoso, Senior Associate at Carbon Trust about the Clean Hydrogen Accelerator.

She began by explaining who Carbon Trust are and it’s main focuses: “The Carbon Trust is a global climate consultancy driven by the mission to accelerate the move to a decarbonised future.

“We have been pioneering decarbonisation for more than 20 years for businesses, governments, and organisations. Drawing on a network of over 300 experts internationally, the Carbon Trust guides organisations through their journey to net zero.”

From strategic planning and target setting to delivery, activation, and communication – we provide smarter ways to turn intent into impact.”

Serene said that the key aim of the Hydrogen Accelerator is helping to secure the UK’s energy supply and support climate targets.

She said: “The first of the Accelerator’s two programmes, the Clean Hydrogen Innovation Programme aims to speed up the deployment of clean hydrogen, by reducing the end-to-end cost through innovation so that it becomes cost competitive with conventional alternatives.”

It Is Essential That Further Development Is Accelerated To Meet Net Zero Targets

Continuing, Serene revealed that one of the main barriers to the use of clean hydrogen is the high end-to-end cost. She said to overcome this challenge, work will be done to identify opportunities and potential for cost reduction: “CHIP’s initial focus will be on producing an impartial evidence base to identify cost and risk reduction opportunities through targeting supply chain innovation.

“Industry will then identify where there is the highest cost reduction potential, and interventions will be staged to stimulate the supply chain.

It will follow a model, similar to that already used by the Carbon Trust’s other collaborative innovation programmes. This includes the Offshore Wind Accelerator, which has helped to reduce the cost of offshore wind and accelerate growth.

Going forward, Serene highlighted that now: “The Carbon Trust is calling for the industry to engage with the programme now to help collaborate and shape the programme to develop solutions that will accelerate further development of clean hydrogen to meet the UK’s net zero energy transition goals.”

The first phase of CHIP will focus on carrying out an innovation needs assessment to identify key priorities for its initial work.

Based on this information, the second phase will focus on addressing these issues by stimulating the supply chain through competitive innovation calls. CHIP will receive initial funding from BEIS alongside contributions from industry participants.