Bath PhD student Catherine Butler presented at the GKN Aerospace Global Technology Centre in Bristol on the 16th Jan.

Over the preceding years, The University of Bath and GKN Aerospace have partnered across many research programmes. In an effort to foster further collaboration, students were invited to discuss their research and find further synergies with real world challenges faced across GKN’s portfolio. Catherine discussed solid state hydrogen storage and how her research could lead to new ways forward.

DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY -Hydrogen Strategy update to the market: December 2022

December 2022

UK-HyRES is pleased to announce BEIS has released its latest Hydrogen Strategy Update to The Market (December 2022). We have included some of the key details below, but encourage all stakeholders to read the report.

Policy areas covered in this update are:

• hydrogen production
• hydrogen networks and storage
• uses of hydrogen in industry, power, transport and potentially heat
• creating a market: regulatory frameworks and gas blending
• hydrogen sector development covering investment, exports and imports, research and innovation, and the UK Hydrogen Champion
• international leadership in hydrogen, including through bilateral relationships, COP27, the Breakthrough Agenda, Mission Innovation, the Clean Energy Ministerial and the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy

“The Government is committed to developing the UK’s low carbon hydrogen economy: hydrogen is considered critical to delivering energy security and our decarbonisation targets, and presents a significant growth opportunity. It can play a pivotal role in our transition to a future based on renewable and nuclear energy, while ensuring that natural gas used during this transition is from reliable sources including our own North Sea production, and can provide clean energy for use in industry, power, transport, and potentially home heating.

In the UK Hydrogen Strategy we included the commitment to regularly summarise our policy development to keep industry apprised. Since publication of the Hydrogen Strategy we have doubled our low carbon hydrogen production capacity ambition to up to 10GW by 2030 (with at least half from electrolytic hydrogen) in the British Energy Security Strategy, provided greater clarity to investors through the Hydrogen Investment Package, and made substantial policy and funding strides across the hydrogen value chain. We summarised these ambitions, commitments and actions in the first Hydrogen Strategy update to the market in July 2022. This was published alongside other key elements of our policy support, which also included the launch of the first Electrolytic Hydrogen Allocation Round – offering joint Net Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF) and Hydrogen Production Business Model (HPBM) support – and our Hydrogen Sector Development Action Plan, and the appointment of a UK Hydrogen Champion. Hydrogen is closely integrated into Government’s wider policy development on energy security and the energy transition both domestically and internationally, with hydrogen policy previously announced through the Net Zero Strategy and the Breakthrough Agenda at COP26.

This December 2022 Hydrogen Strategy update to the market summarises the extensive activity across Government since July to develop new hydrogen policy at pace and to design and deliver funding support. This includes announcements on shortlisted hydrogen projects in the Cluster Sequencing Process, the launch of a consultation on hydrogen transport and storage (T&S) infrastructure, the publication of the HPBM Heads of Terms, and an update on the ongoing first Electrolytic Hydrogen Allocation Round. The hydrogen policy development presented here underlines the Government’s approach to promote every aspect of the UK hydrogen economy in collaboration with industry, investors and international partners to create a strong, globally competitive UK hydrogen sector.”

Quoting the initial key points aligned to UK-HyRES

• Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre to support BEIS in ongoing work to understand the critical minerals requirements for a hydrogen economy. This is an area that has been discussed extensively in UK-HyRES workshops.
• BEIS have been reviewing non-economic regulatory issues and working with regulators through the Regulators Forum to understand and start delivering priority work.
• BEIS continue to target a policy decision in 2023 on whether to allow up to 20% hydrogen blending (by volume) in GB gas distribution networks…
• The first meeting of the hydrogen T&S infrastructure Working Group under the Hydrogen Advisory Council took place on 10 October 2022…
• The UK’s Hydrogen Champion, Jane Toogood, was appointed in July 2022…
• HSE is participating in work by the International Energy Agency Hydrogen
  Technology Collaboration Programme on Safety and Regulations, Codes and Standards for Large Scale Hydrogen Energy Applications.

VIEW & DOWNLOAD THE Hydrogen Strategy update to the market DOCUMENT HERE >

Since UK-HyRES began its coordination project, we have been working to establish the key players in the UK hydrogen economy. This spans smaller supply chain businesses, as well as larger industry. We have had fantastic engagement through our workshops, on our website, and through various offline conversations and fact finding exercises. As we develop the details of the Hub for Research Challenges in Hydrogen and Alternative Liquid Fuels and the projects within, we want to connect industrial priorities with the UK’s talented academic research community.

Below, we have developed a map of the companies and consortia we are aware of, either through their engagement with the HyRES project or through or our own background research.

You can also see the details of all confirmed prospective Co-Investigators, the Hub Co-Directors Prof. Rachael Rothman and Prof. Shanwen Tao, and Hub Director Prof. Tim Mays. We have included only publicly available information in the map. If you are interested in talking with an academic or company listed, please get in touch and we will see if we can make the connection.

Industry Regional Roadshows Early 2023

We are holding interactive industry roadshows across the UK and are especially interested in companies (of all sizes, including their supply chains) attending to share and discuss research challenges in hydrogen and alternative liquids fuels that meet their needs. This is with a view to the co-creation of research projects with academics that will be part of the UK-HyRES Research Hub that is due to start in Q2 2023. You can see the industry-focussed Regional Roadshow venues on the map below, indicated by a red star, dates and details will be available shortly. You can also see the typical catchment areas for each regional event, attendees are however free to choose which events you attend.

Want To Be Included On The Map?

If you are an organisation, company or consortia, and would like to be listed, please send the details through our contact us page. Further functionality will be added in the coming weeks. In the meantime, thank you, community engagement and co-creation of projects is essential to unlocking the barriers to a low carbon hydrogen economy.

Interactive Hydrogen and Alternative Liquid Fuels Industry Map

Two new calls have been announced that we encourage our community to look at!

The first is the Horizon Europe funding call: Horizon Europe is an EU research and innovation programme. It has a budget of €95.5 billion and runs until 2027. If you’re a UK-based researcher or innovator, you can apply to most Horizon Europe funding opportunities on the same terms as EU-based applicants, and on the 31st Jan they are holding a Consortia Building Event for potential applicants.

The second is that a pre-announcement of the UKRI interdisciplinary responsive mode scheme is now live with the full call due to be launched imminently. View the call here!

In the last ever H2FC Supergen Hub annual assembly, before they hand the hydrogen energy baton over to the two new £25m successor programmes – this project, UK HyRES and also, UK HiACT – the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell (H2FC) Supergen Hub brought together leading lights and rising stars for a fully cross-sector focus on Moving Ah₂ead with Hydrogen. Held at The Science Museum, PI Tim Mays gave a presentation that discussed the work done in the coordinator project to date and our exciting plans for the future of the Hub. You can download the slide deck here.

Have you read the latest independent review of the UK’s Net Zero mission by the Rt Hon Chris Skidmore? We were heartened to see so many mentions of hydrogen and alternative liquid fuels and the part they will play in Mission Zero. Definitely worth a read and you can access it here!

We’ve been sharing our research at the University of Bath on novel materials for hydrogen storage as part of a new digital series from IOM3 (Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining) and Content with Purpose.  Find out how #MaterialChange is helping to address the #ClimateCrisis, achieve #NetZero targets and accelerate the #CircularEconomy.

See the LinkedIn post and read more on the IOM3 website. You can also see the video here!

On Thursday 3 November 2022 UK-HyRES Principal Investigator Prof Tim Mays gave an invited, keynote talk “Connecting Basic Research on Hydrogen with Industry and Policy” at the re-scheduled Scottish Policy Conference “Developing the Hydrogen Economy in Scotland”, read more at https://www.scotlandpolicyconferences.co.uk/conference/SPC-Hydrogen-22.

The UK-HyRES team is delighted to confirm that our proposal to the EPSRC for a national Hub for Research Challenges in Hydrogen and Alternative Liquid Fuels was submitted yesterday. There will now be a validation and review process managed by the EPSRC. We hope that will lead to a positive outcome. In the meantime, our work on the UK-HyRES Co-ordinator project will continue until the end of next April. Please keep an eye out on this website for further UK-HyRES news, including about events that we will be holding over the next six months. Thank you.

Prof Tim Mays, UK-HyRES Principal Investigator, University of Bath

Appointment of Dr Marcus Newborough, CEng FEI, FREng as a Visiting Professor

10th October 2022

The University of Bath’s Department of Chemical Engineering is delighted to announce that Marcus Newborough, Development Director, ITM Power PLC (https://itm-power.com) will be appointed as a Visiting Professor from 1 November 2022.  He will continue to work closely with Professor Tim Mays in the Department, and other colleagues on campus, with a focus on sustainable hydrogen engineering.  This will include supporting Tim in building a national EPSRC Hub for Research in Hydrogen and Alternative Liquid Fuels (UK-HyRES, https://ukhyres.co.uk) to be based at the University.

Notes

1. Following his PhD at Cranfield Institute of Technology in 1987 Marcus Newborough has had a successful career in sustainable engineering in industry and as an academic.  He joined ITM in 2006 and was appointed to his current senior role at the company in 2009.  Marcus is a Chartered Engineer (CEng, 1991), Fellow of the Energy Institute (FEI, 2010) and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng, 2013).
2. ITM is a world-leading company in the manufacture of proton-exchange membrane (PEM) units to produce green hydrogen via water electrolysis for low carbon electricity, heat and mobility and for industrial decarbonisation.  The company floated on the Alternative Investment Market in 2004 becoming the first hydrogen company to be publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).  The LSE has also granted the company a Green Economy Mark.  In August 2021 the Business Secretary opened ITM’s “Giga Factory” in Sheffield (the world’s largest PEM electrolyser plant) and at the same event launched the UK’s Hydrogen Strategy (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-hydrogen-strategy).