The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has written to the government, stressing the need to accelerate efforts to encourage private investment into the energy infrastructure the country needs for net zero and energy security.
Sir John Armitt, Chair of the Commission, wrote to the Chancellor and Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary ahead of the Budget, drawing on the “final quarter of emissions” that are set to be difficult for the UK to overcome as it targets a decarbonised power sector by 2035. Achieving this will call for large-scale hydrogen and gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS), as well as other sources of low carbon flexibility. Armitt stressed these goals will need private sector investment to ensure they can be delivered.
Armitt welcomed consultations to support long-duration storage and hydrogen power generation, as well as announcements on CCS, hydrogen transport and hydrogen storage business models, though added, “it is taking too long to make decisions on these policy mechanisms”.
He pointed out how it took two and a half years between issuing a call for evidence on support for long-duration storage and consulting on specific measures, as well as two years from the Net Zero Strategy commitment to make a decision on whether hydrogen power generation would need financial support. It is also still going to take further design work and funding before this support can even be delivered.
Armitt continued: “Government needs to move faster to ensure that the necessary infrastructure can be delivered over the next decade. To meet the needs of the power sector, we should be deploying hydrogen and gas CCS generation at a pace equivalent to the ‘dash for gas,’ which reached a peak of 3GW per year. That will be stretching given there is no large scale deployment of hydrogen or gas CCS generation today.” He also stressed the need for greater urgency when it comes to developing hydrogen storage.
The Commission also wants to see development expenditure (DEVEX) support from government to allow front end engineering design studies to help projects to get to the stage where they could apply for a development consent order. Armitt drew on a call in the second National Infrastructure Assessment for £40mn in DEVEX support to allow the delivery of the new hydrogen and CCS pipelines and storage that are going to be needed in 2035.
