Emerging Energy Technologies Fund
The Climate Change Plan Update (December 2020) announced a £180 million Emerging Energy Technologies Fund (EETF) to support the development of the hydrogen sector and carbon capture and storage (CCS), including Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) in Scotland. The EETF will provide capital support over five years 2022 to 2026 to accelerate low carbon infrastructure projects that will be essential to deliver net zero. The Fund will make £100 million available to support hydrogen projects in line with our Hydrogen Policy Statement.
We published the draft Hydrogen Action Plan (HAP) November 2021. The HAP will commit up to £100 million in hydrogen funding through the EETF, which will support our hydrogen production ambition of 5GW by 2030. We aim to direct early years investment in ensuring renewable, green hydrogen production and demand grow in tandem and support the implementation of the Hydrogen Action Plan.
The draft Action Plan also confirmed that a £10 million hydrogen innovation funding element (the EETF Hydrogen Innovation Scheme), would be launched in 2022 as the first tranche of the hydrogen funding programme. This will support Scottish researchers and innovators to drive innovation that will support the realisation of Scotland’s 5GW by 2030 ambition.
Policy context
Scotland has set world-leading climate change targets, to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 and a 75% reduction by 2030, against the 1990 baseline. This means that across our economy we will need to move at an unprecedented pace to deliver the innovation, investment, regulation and the market environment that will enable the required step change towards net zero.
It is clear that hydrogen will play an important role in our future energy system, helping lower our greenhouse gas emissions and minimise our impacts on the climate. It also presents new economic opportunities for Scotland.
Use of hydrogen can act as a complementary energy source alongside electrification, as well as offering a compelling solution for sectors where full electrification is challenging. This may make it appropriate for industrial applications for energy intensive industries and some forms of transport. This includes for example:
- road freight
- hydrogen trains on lines which would be very expensive to electrify
- buses
- shipping
We published the Scottish Government Hydrogen policy statement, in December 2020. This confirmed our strong support for a strategic approach to the development of the hydrogen economy in Scotland. It also included a clear ambition of 5GW installed hydrogen production capacity by 2030 and 25GW by 2045.
The policy statement made a commitment to drive technological progress and advance innovation by unlocking public and private funds for innovation development. It also committed to support demonstration for key hydrogen technologies, such as fuel cells and electrolysers.
Innovation and research across hydrogen production, storage, distribution and end-use technologies will be central to driving efficiencies, performance optimisation and cost reduction. These will underpin the growth of commercial scale renewable hydrogen projects.
Hydrogen Innovation Scheme (HIS)
We launched the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme (HIS) on 27 June 2022 in order to support innovative renewable hydrogen production, storage and distribution solutions as well as the development of test and demonstration facilities in Scotland.
The Scheme is designed to work in complement to existing UK and Scottish funding for energy innovation. It will provide targeted support to drive innovation that will support the realisation of Scotland’s 5GW by 2030 and 25GW by 2045 ambition.
The Scheme is a £10 million capital funding stream of the Emerging Energy Technologies Fund, to be delivered over 4 years from 2022/23 to 2025/26.
EETF HIS is designed to support the development and demonstration of renewable hydrogen technologies and products needed to support our ambition of 5GW installed hydrogen production capacity by 2030.