The Scottish government has set out its ambition for Scotland to become a leading nation in the production of reliable, competitive and sustainable hydrogen.
On 5 March, it published its National Strategy for Economic Transformation, where it placed an emphasis on collaboration to ensure skills for the future. Specific pledges include working collaboratively with employers and unions to increase investment in upskilling and retraining to better meet the needs of both employers and employees in Scotland’s transition to net zero; implementing the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan to align Scotland’s skills system with business needs to reach net zero; and implementing the next phase of the Green Jobs Workforce Academy, as well as launching a new skills guarantee for workers in carbon intensive industries.
It also identifies a number of opportunities, including hydrogen, where it outlines how Scotland already occupies a position of global leadership in the design, development and operationalisation of a range of current and future key industries, which includes the hydrogen economy. It has vast generation potential of renewable hydrogen for export markets. It noted its Hydrogen Action Plan has already set out the actions for Scotland to become a leading hydrogen nation by 2045, including the creation of transformative regional hydrogen hubs.
However, in its programme of action, it does pledge to provide capital investment to support renewable hydrogen production to ensure Scotland can deliver on this ambition. The first tranche of investment is set to focus on driving technological progress and advance innovation and cost reduction within the emerging hydrogen sector.
