Shapps: Very strong case for blending hydrogen and gas

Energy security and net zero secretary Grant Shapps has said there is a “very strong case” for blending hydrogen into the gas network.

During an immediate post-Budget hearing of the environment audit committee on Wednesday (15 March), the secretary of state for energy security and net zero said there is unlikely to be a one-size-fits-all solution for decarbonising home heating.

Asked to comment on a recent House of Lords committee report that criticised the government for sending out mixed messages by continuing to explore hydrogen as a home heating option, Shapps said: “I can see a very strong case for mixing 20% (hydrogen) into the existing set up; you don’t need new boilers for the most part and you could help to decarbonise the system straightaway.”

But he added  that the full answer about hydrogen’s role in the domestic heat mix would have to wait for various trials that the government is carrying out.

The government has committed to make a decision on whether hydrogen will have a role in home heating by 2026.

A consultation paper, published last September by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy before Shapps’ appointment as secretary of state at the recently scrapped department, said blending hydrogen into the gas network would have only have a “limited and temporary role”.

Shapps also told the committee that hydrogen would have a massively important part in decarbonising sectors, like shipping and rail.

He added that the government is a long way through shortlisting the projects for the first annual electrolytic round of its programme to incentivise green hydrogen production.

Shapps also claimed that following prime minister Rishi Sunak’s recent reorganisation of government, his new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is now one of the most important in Whitehall.

He said: “For the first time net zero occupies a senior position in the Whitehall cabinet ranking.”

Referring to the most senior Whitehall departments; the Treasury and the Home and Foreign Offices, Shapps said: “After the great offices, it is the next one and outranks all other departments.”

Having a very high ranking in the Whitehall pecking order means other departments will be under greater pressure to respond to DESNZ, he said, adding that the new ministry is twice the size of the old DECC (Department of Energy and Climate), which was abolished in 2016.

Shapps told the committee that one of the key justifications for setting up the new dedicated energy and net zero department was the ability it provided to get absolute focus on solving the problem of grid connection delays.

On other aspects of DESNZ’s work, he said it will be producing a strategy on energy from biomass towards the middle of this year.

The secretary of state also said he is keen to do everything we can to remove restrictions on rooftop solar panels, including on big retail warehouses that could provide multiple GWs of power to the grid across the country.

And following the introduction of the Future Homes Standard in 2025, which will outline tougher low carbon building regulations for new residential properties, he said it would be “virtually impossible to build a home without putting [in] renewables”.

But Shapps rejected criticism by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, who is a member of the environment audit committee, that the government is not making it mandatory to install solar panels on new homes.

He said taking this step could cause a “fundamental slowdown” in house building by leaving it vulnerable to delays in the global supply of solar panels, which in turn depend on availability of critical minerals.

Raising concerns that this could result in the construction of significantly less homes than the government’s stated 300,000 per annum target, Shapps said: “This could cause an additional housing crisis, which is one of the reasons why you need to take this in stages.”