Ronan Cloud, Director of Economic Development at Copper Consultancy, explores how the hydrogen sector can navigate communicating through change
The history of hydrogen as a fuel source started – literally – with a bang. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Space Race saw increased demand for efficient and stable power supplies – meaning spacecraft ended up making use of hydrogen fuel cells, including the Apollo moon landing missions.
Despite that early adoption of the technology, however, hydrogen has been perceived for a long time as ‘a fuel of the future’. The tide on this may now finally be turning. Governments the world over are making substantial commitments to investing in hydrogen energy – in the UK specifically, 2021 saw the Government publish its Hydrogen Strategy, aiming to produce 5GW of low-carbon hydrogen energy by 2030. Similarly, Germany made plans to invest €9bn in the hydrogen sector in 2022.
And the UK’s newly elected Labour government won’t be missing any opportunities to invest. On top of the last government’s plans to issue a £240m Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, with the launch of GB Energy, a public energy company that will strategically invest in green energy projects, the potential for rapid growth has been unleashed on the UK market.
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