Hydrogen heating will play only a limited role in the UK, if any, and not for some time, the country’s government said yesterday (Wednesday).

The statement came as London rolled out its Warm Home Plan, which promised £15bn ($20bn) to help households buy solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and insulation.

But hydrogen was conspicuously absent from the list of technologies to benefit from the subsidy programme.

Instead, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) dedicated just a few lines to H2 in the Plan, to reiterate its focus on electrification.
“Our Warm Homes Plan concentrates on proven electric technologies that can be deployed now at scale across the country,” it reads.

“We will consult in due course on our assessment of whether hydrogen should have any role in heating our homes in the future. As hydrogen is not yet a proven technology for home heating, a role would come later and likely be limited.”

The government’s independent climate change advisors, the Climate Change Committee, have warned that there will be no role at all for hydrogen in space heating.

Nevertheless, gas companies in the UK have lobbied hard for hydrogen to be considered as a major decarbonisation option for the country’s residential properties, including promoting “Hydrogen Village” trials of H2 heating infrastructure in two locations in the north of England, both of which ultimately collapsed before they began.

However the Scottish and UK governments are funding the H100 Fife hydrogen heating trial in Scotland, which aims to switch 300 homes to using the fuel.

The UK government, led by the centre-left Labour Party, had vowed in 2024 to carry out a public consultation on using hydrogen in home heating in 2025, but did not do so.

The previous Conservative administration had promised to make a decision on H2 in home heating in 2026, however, it is not clear whether the Labour government plans to stick to this timetable.