UK ban on boilers in new homes rules out hydrogen as a heating source

Boilers will likely be banned in new-build houses within the UK from 2025, in line with a long-awaited authorities session on vitality effectivity requirements within the housebuilding business. The report mentioned that there’s “no sensible method” that putting in boilers of any sort will “ship vital carbon financial savings and ‘zero-carbon prepared’ houses”.

What’s extra stunning is that hydrogen has additionally been dominated out as a possible heating supply. Beforehand, hydrogen had been touted by each the federal government and the vitality business as a logical substitute for the pure gasoline (a fossil gas and contributor to local weather change) that’s pumped by means of the nationwide grid and burned in boilers all through the UK.

Supplied it’s made with out emitting carbon, sometimes through the use of renewable electrical energy to separate water molecules, hydrogen is a “clear” gas. However the overwhelming majority of the hydrogen used worldwide is produced utilizing fossil fuels, making it a doubtful inexperienced different.

A report in March 2023 by a UK authorities advisor advisable mixing as much as 20% hydrogen into the gasoline grid. A number of the largest boiler producers known as for “all boilers to be hydrogen-compatible as of 2025”. And, as just lately as December 2022, the federal government thought of making all gasoline boilers offered to houses from 2026 able to sooner or later burning hydrogen as an alternative.

Three cities, Whitby in Cheshire, Redcar in North Yorkshire and Levenmouth in Fife, have been even chosen to host trials the place a number of houses could be heated with hydrogen.

Exterior of the bubble inflated by the federal government and business figures, few thought that utilizing hydrogen for residence heating was a good suggestion. Hydrogen gained’t remedy both of the 2 largest vitality challenges: price and carbon emissions. The method of creating hydrogen is considerably dearer than pumping pure gasoline and there merely just isn’t sufficient “clear” hydrogen out there.

A 2022 report by Dr Jan Rosenow from the College of Oxford reviewed 32 worldwide research on using hydrogen for heating and concluded that its widespread use was not justifiable. “Hydrogen use for home heating is much less financial, much less environment friendly, extra useful resource intensive, and related to bigger environmental impacts” than options reminiscent of warmth pumps, it mentioned.

Warmth pumps are quickly changing into the default alternative for heating (and cooling) globally. Utilizing the identical expertise as a fridge or air conditioner, warmth pumps powered by electrical energy extract and switch warmth to the place it’s wanted.

Did COP28 burst hydrogen’s bubble?

The timing of the session is intriguing. It was initially scheduled to be printed in late 2020 however was postponed a number of occasions. It was lastly launched on December 13 2023, on the identical day that almost 200 international locations agreed to “transition” away from fossil fuels on the COP28 local weather summit in Dubai.

A number of days previous to this on December 8, a broad vary of presidency, business and voluntary organisations launched a joint declaration at COP28 on the Accountable Deployment of Renewables-Based mostly Hydrogen.

The declaration features a pledge to prioritise clear hydrogen for “displacing the present use of fossil-based hydrogen” the place loads is already wanted, or for “hard-to-abate sectors” reminiscent of heavy business the place much more will likely be wanted. It went on to state that its use for heating could be “probably cannibalising renewable electrical energy”. It’s because you find yourself with solely two-thirds of the vitality within the hydrogen that you just began with from the electrical energy.

As for the three trial tasks, two have already been cancelled on account of protests and a scarcity of uptake by residents. It’s arduous to see how the one remaining in Fife may sensibly proceed – particularly because the Scottish authorities signed the Accountable Hydrogen declaration.

What the long run holds

That is only a session. In different phrases, a authorities coverage doc submitted for public suggestions. There isn’t any assure that the ban on hydrogen boilers will likely be carried out by parliament. It’s possible that vitality business teams will foyer for adjustments by means of the session course of, and in the end will probably be the politicians who determine.

However the course of journey has been set. That is “the start of the top” of the fossil gas period in line with the UN Local weather Change Government Secretary Simon Stiell in his closing speech at COP28.

Germany’s local weather envoy Jennifer Morgan mentioned: “Now the alerts are clear. For those who’re an investor, the long run is renewable. Fossil fuels are stranded property.” Clear hydrogen will likely be part of that transition however solely the place no viable options exist.

No matter whether or not the suggestions of the Future Houses session grow to be legislation, we are able to safely say a number of issues:

Hydrogen won’t be used for residence heating in any significant method. Even when the federal government ignores the session, there may be neither scientific nor public help for its use and it’ll not cut back vitality prices.
Assume that every one new-build houses will likely be fitted with warmth pumps beginning throughout the subsequent few years. The truth is they’re cost-effective to put in and function, particularly as insulation ranges are elevated such that the necessity for area heating turns into minimal.
The one actual different to warmth pumps, particularly for flats, are district warmth networks the place sizzling water will get pumped round a complete neighbourhood from a central supply. These are commonplace in lots of chilly international locations, so we must always anticipate to see much more of them within the UK.

The opposite certainty is that residence boilers will very quickly transfer into the realm of nostalgia.