The H100 Fife project, run by gas distribution firm SGN and Fife Council in cooperation with industry regulator Ofgem, is moving ahead with plans to supply hydrogen to households by next year.

H100 Fife will allow households in the Buckhaven and Denbeath areas of historic Methil on the south Fife coast to opt in to be supplied with hydrogen through a new network—due to go live in 2024—until March 2027, when the trial ends.

Green hydrogen for the network will be supplied by an electrolyser co-located with a dedicated 7MW wind turbine, estimated to produce enough hydrogen to supply 900 homes annually. More than 300 have already pledged to opt into the network once live.

The project has recently selected heating system manufacturer Baxi to supply 100pc hydrogen boilers for a pair of show homes due to open to the public this summer.

2024 – H100 Fife trial to begin

The UK is also preparing a wider 1,000–2,000 ‘hydrogen village’ trial to take place in 2025, with Whitby in Ellesmere Port and Redcar in Teesside identified as potential locations last spring. Rather than opting in on a household-by-household basis as in the Fife trial, the existing local gas network will be modified for hydrogen to be piped through it. Households will have the option to either opt into the trial—agreeing to replace existing gas appliances with ones safe to run on hydrogen—or switch to alternative heating systems.

The UK government claims consumers will not pay more to use hydrogen than they would for natural gas and will not be expected to pay for the installation and maintenance of hydrogen-capable appliances or alternative heating solutions. But some residents are wary that the hydrogen and electric options may ultimately incur higher costs than the current gas network. This has led to criticism of Cadent, the gas company planning to run the Whitby trial, by local MP Justin Madders and council leader Louise Gittins.

“Basic questions, for example, such as what will happen to the cost of energy after the trial ends, have thus far been left unanswered, leaving our constituents in a lot of doubt as to what will happen once the scheme ends,” the two local politicians wrote in a January letter to secretary of state for the then-Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—now the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero—Grant Shapps. 

“We will continue to proactively engage with the residents of Whitby, hearing and listening to the broad church of opinions that come from right across the community,” Marc Clarke, Cadent’s head of hydrogen consumer, tells Hydrogen Economist. “We receive and record feedback in a variety of ways: it could happen during one of the 1,100 in-home inspections we have carried out to date; through one of the 500 emails we have received and responded to asking for more information; or verbally from one of the 600 local people we have welcomed through the doors of our purpose-built Hydrogen Experience Centre.”

“We value all local input and we welcome this continued dialogue as we attend and host local community meetings, deliver regular webinars, and communicate accurate information about the benefits of the proposed trial.  All feedback and findings will be delivered to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, as per the criteria set out in their submission process,” he adds.

The UK government plans to take a decision on hydrogen's role in decarbonising the country's heating by 2026. At the end of last year, it opened a consultation on mandating all new boilers be 'hydrogen-ready' from that year.

This article was updated on 17 March 2023 to include a response from Cadent.

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Author: Polly Martin