Chief Executive of Catalyst Technologies at Johnson Matthey, Jane Toogood has been appointed as the UK’s first Hydrogen Champion.
Making the announcement on 20 July, the government explained that Toogood will be tasked with bringing industry and government together to deliver on the latter’s hydrogen ambitions, which include 10GW of production capacity by 2030, running allocation rounds for electrolytic hydrogen and designing new business models for hydrogen transport and storage infrastructure by 2025.
Toogood will be tasked with helping to drive industry investment and deployment as the UK’s hydrogen economy looks to develop, identify current barriers to building a strong UK hydrogen economy and then develop creative solutions to address them, accelerate the project pipeline and deliver on the aforementioned government goals.
Commenting on her appointment, Toogood highlighted how at Johnson Matthey, they were seeing demand for hydrogen ecosystems globally being taken up across industry, transportation and the power sector “at a rapid pace, especially with the increased focus on energy security”. Toogood added: “As the UK’s Hydrogen Champion, working with industry and government, I hope to ensure we make progress in building a thriving hydrogen economy ensuring private sector investment and policy decisions are aligned to support timely decisions and outcomes.”
