The British Gas boss responded to claims that hydrogen will not play a major role in future home heating days after Grant Shapps suggested that this was no longer seen as a realistic option.
Chris O'Shea, chief executive of Centrica, owner of British Gas, warned that moving away from hydrogen boilers for domestic use could thwart the push for zero emissions and overcharges.
His comments will be taken as a response to Energy Security Secretary Mr. Shapps, who told reporters that the technical challenges involved in converting millions of homes from natural gas boilers to hydrogen look like too big.
Along with electrically driven heat pumps, hydrogen boilers have been proposed as an environmentally friendly alternative to gas-fired boilers because no carbon dioxide is produced when hydrogen is burned.
0409 UK Hydrogen Demand Forecast
However, in The Telegraph, Mr O'Shi said that “too many people fall into the trap of thinking heat pumps are the only solution to decarbonize heat in homes .
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He added: “Assumptions that hydrogen is unlikely to be part of a home heating solution before the results of extensive testing are known risk undermining the energy transition and increasing costs for everyone.
“As the UK's largest boiler and heat pump installer, we have experience in this area.
“If we make the most of our first mover advantage, we can provide a huge boost to growth and prosperity.
“But if we step back and get left behind in the global energy transition, we risk paying a very high economic price.
“Being proactive will make the energy transition affordable – stalling means it will be a huge burden.”
Centrica CEO Chris O'Shea says mixed messages about the risks of hydrogen could undermine the energy transition. Photo: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire
Mr Shapps made his comments at an event in Westminster last week, where he suggested that “clean” gas was more likely to be used for heavy industry and transportation than residential heating.
“There was a time when people thought that you would have something like a gas boiler and we would feed hydrogen into it,” he said.
“The problem is that you will have to replace a lot of pipelines and, of course, we have to produce green hydrogen to make it all add up – in volumes that would mean that the transition would be very slow. Therefore, I am not sure that the heating of the house will be completely carried out by hydrogen.”
The comments caused concern in the industry. Many investors in the gas supply chain are hoping their assets can be repurposed for hydrogen production.
They also raised whether the government is planning a similar proposed test at Redcar. A decision on this issue is expected in the coming months.
Mr Shapps was speaking just days after local opposition prompted the government to cancel plans to test a hydrogen boiler at Whitby, near the port of Ellesmere. Residents were told their gas boilers would be replaced with a new hydrogen boiler or heat pump if they did not want to participate in the pilot, but many said they did not want to choose either option.
James Earl, director of gas for the Energy Networks Association, which represents UK gas network operators, said: “The government needs to make sure it educates customers and investors about its hydrogen policy. Comments and speculation without firm political commitment lead to more uncertainty.
“The sector is currently awaiting political decisions on how hydrogen deployment will work and the timing of its implementation, and when this roadmap will be set, gas network operators and investors will be ready to execute it in no time.”
Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, said Shapps' comments are “useless” and will make companies think twice about investing.
A government spokesman said: “The Energy Minister said he did not think all homes would be heated by hydrogen, but stressed that it could play a role in decarbonizing heating systems and we will continue to test its use.”
” We are discussing a pilot version of hydrogen heating in a village in Redcar, and a trial system is under construction in Fife.
“We will continue to study the role of hydrogen in home heating and make a final decision in 2026 as planned.”
A feared hydrogen heating revolution before it even started
Outlining plans for a green industrial revolution, Boris Johnson once speculated about the possibility of households cooking breakfast using hydrogen instead of natural gas.
The fuel that does not produce carbon dioxide when burned, will be pumped into millions of homes through the existing gas pipeline network, powering “hydrogen-ready” stoves and boilers.
Proponents argue that this represents a dream scenario, saving consumers from having to ditch boilers in favor of more expensive heat. pumps using infrastructure already in the ground.
To test their theory, the government proposed testing “hydrogen villages” at Whitby, near Ellesmere Port and Redcar, where companies including British Gas offered residents free boiler upgrades and guaranteed limits on their accounts if they participate.
Less than a year later, the plan fell apart amid security protests and bill hikes, while ministers markedly scaled down their support for domestic hydrogen use.
1807,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0Earlier this month, Lord Callanan, Energy Secretary, acknowledged that “it is clear there is not strong local support in Whitby” for the litigation and discussions are still ongoing about whether Redcar will continue to operate.
Then, just a few days later, Grant Shapps, Minister of Energy Security and Net Zero, told reporters that while hydrogen is likely to be used in heavy industry, replacing gas with hydrogen in homes no longer looks realistic.
“There was a time when people thought that you would have something like a gas boiler and we would feed hydrogen into it,” Shapps said.
“The problem is that you have to replace a lot of pipelines and of course we have to produce green hydrogen to make it all add up – in volumes that would mean the transition would be very slow.”
His The comments have alarmed industry bosses who now fear the dream of a hydrogen heating revolution may be over before it even starts.
Instead, it looks like UK policy will focus on replacing gas-fired boilers with heat pumps – despite the lack of consumer enthusiasm for them so far – and other solutions such as district heating networks.
But Chris O'Shea, chief executive of Centrica, owner of British Gas, warned on Tuesday that premature decommissioning of hydrogen “risks undermining the energy transition and increasing costs for all.”
“As the UK's largest boiler and heat pump installer, we have experience,” he adds.
This comes after some companies made big bets that hydrogen would be part of the UK's future energy system. Macquarie, an Australian investment bank, jointly acquired the country's gas transmission network from National Grid last year for more than £4bn, pointing to hydrogen as a potential source of future demand.
Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, a lobbying group for boiler and gas network manufacturers, warns that Shapps' announcement “shocks the entire industry.”
“Boiler manufacturers who have been ordered by the government to develop hydrogen-ready boilers will now rightly ask – why bother?” Foster says. “The same goes for gas networks that are doing pilot projects.
“Delayed decisions and ill-considered, useless and, to put it politely, factually incorrect remarks like this give the impression that the UK doesn't really know what it's doing.”
The debate about how to decarbonise home heating has been raging for years, but politicians are taking a cautious approach, as it is one of the ways that net zero will most directly affect households.
Although ministers launched a heat pump subsidy scheme last year, they were criticized by parliamentary committees for not giving the technology full support in society.
1807 Lagging behind
In 2021, a long-awaited heating and building strategy avoided supporting one technology at the expense of another. A target of 600,000 heat pumps a year was set for 2028, and a decision on whether hydrogen will be used for home heating was scheduled for 2026, after the next general election.
Kwasi Kwarteng, a former chancellor who was business secretary at the time, says the strategy was deliberately kept “tech-neutral.”
“If you're serious about zero absence , you have to look for all sorts of solutions,” he explains.
“The goal of heat pumps is very ambitious – I would even venture to say that it is almost impossible to achieve – and you have a huge number of homes in this country, so the idea that only one technology will satisfy all these heating needs is unrealistic.
Against this background, the government proposed to test the “hydrogen village”.
Families in Whitby, near Ellesmere Port, and in Redcar were invited to take part in the two-year trial. a scheme that would allow them to replace their current gas boiler with a hydrogen one or, if they didn't want to participate, with an electric heat pump.
But it quickly became clear that many residents were unwilling to accept either option.
1807 inefficient houses
One local resident worried that they were “given away like lambs to the slaughter” due to potentially higher prices, while others were dismayed by recommendations suggesting some homes would need to drill four-inch holes into their homes. walls to reduce the risk of explosion.
In this context, some argue that the annulment of the Whitby trial did not come as a surprise.
“I think that's telling,” says Clem Cawthon, director of external relations for Octopus Energy, which invested in a heat pump manufacturer last year.
“The main attraction of hydrogen boilers—apart from the benefit to gas networks from extending the life of their assets—should be that they are relatively hassle-free for consumers.”
“In fact, we have seen that in the real world residents would have to endure significant shocks.”
In addition, she argues that hydrogen is inefficient both for transportation and as a method of generating heat compared to heat pumps.
Greg Jackson, Cowton boss and chief executive of Octopus, likens it to “flushing the toilet with champagne” and says it will lead to higher bills.
This is because electrolysis requires about six times more electricity to produce hydrogen from water than simply using a heat pump to produce the same amount of heat, says Dr. Jan Rosenov, energy policy researcher and director of European programs at the Regulatory project. Assistance Project.
He says a growing number of independent studies – 43 by his last count – have concluded that hydrogen plays only a small role in home heating due to restrictions.
“It will still be interesting to see what happens to hydrogen Redcar test, but British officials clearly realized that it would be much more difficult than they first thought,” adds Rosenov.
According to Cawthon, Octopus also briefly considered investing in hydrogen heating before abandoning it.
“The more we looked at it, the harder it was to find independent researchers or scientists anywhere who would say that hydrogen is a good idea for heating because fundamental physics and economics just don’t add up.”
1807 Less influence of hydrogen
However, heat pumps are hardly popular either. In the first year of the state grant scheme, two-thirds of the vouchers went unclaimed.
Ministers will now decide whether to continue hydrogen testing at Redcar in the coming months.
Sarah Williams, Deputy CEO of Wales & West Utilities, the gas network operator that is co-proposing the Redcar trial, dismisses suggestions that recent events bodes badly for its industry.
“I don't think it's a setback. As for Grant Shapps comments, I think they were taken out of context,” she explains. “He said that he was not sure that houses would be heated entirely by hydrogen, and we agree that this will not be everywhere.
“We expect that 60 to 70% of houses will be able to be on hydrogen .
“We all need something new in our homes. When you look at the issues surrounding the Whitby lawsuit, I think it's fair to say that residents don't like being told they need to change their heating system, so one of the key points we're offering here is choice. .
At the moment, it remains unclear whether hydrogen heating is a serious prospect for Britain or just another pipe dream of Boris Johnson.
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