Blue hydrogen will increase fuel poverty

Blue hydrogen will increase fuel poverty

Producing blue hydrogen carries a very poor round trip efficiency. Natural gas is reformed to hydrogen, the resultant CO2 emissions are captured and stored, the hydrogen is treated, compressed, stored and distributed to households where it is burned for domestic heating.

This chain of delivery steps means that for every 100 kWh of natural gas used to make hydrogen around 35 kWh appears as heat in a property.

The upshot is that blue hydrogen will be about 2-3 times the price of using natural gas for heating. The impact that this will have on families already in fuel poverty is obvious. Blue hydrogen will also result in more families being in fuel poverty.