The recent Grid paper on spending £58bn to install 20000 more pylons is worth reading more closely. Hydrogen is mentioned in 19 places and National Grid has a Hydrogen Department, but the fact is that it is impossible to make economic Green Hydrogen from Grid Electricity. The tax alone would kill it. Also such Grid hydrogen is not Green because renewable energy on the Grid is only around 40% of the power. Grid Hydrogen is 60% climate crisis.
The paper focusses on Energy Storage, possible in salt caverns, while speculating about green hydrogen reaching 22GW in 2035 which is when the Grid target is 100% green. Will it get there? We really need 100GW of green power by 2035 just for replacing petroleum in transport.
Rambling on without any evidence it states “On our journey towards whole-systems network planning, and for the first time in this publication, we are considering the role of large-scale energy demand users (such as factories and hydrogen electrolysers), and regions of strategic importance where new large-scale demand could be located, as a potential alternative to additional network infrastructure.” At least they recognise that the Grid is inadequate right now, with 20% of renewables being wasted because the Grid cannot handle big renewable power, while installers of solar/wind wait in their hundreds to agree a Grid connection. The truth is that the Grid cannot even provide sufficient infrastructure to charge existing battery electric cars.