By Gillian Martin MSP, Scottish Government acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy
In the last few years, there has been global momentum around the development of international hydrogen markets, with countries across Europe – including Scotland - increasing both the scale and pace of the development of hydrogen production.
The emerging European hydrogen sector is one of Scotland's "greatest industrial opportunities since oil and gas", according to the Scottish energy minister.
Viewed from a challenging UK environment, the Middle East - with its enormous natural resources and supportive regimes - can seem like a utopia. The reality is different.
As the Germany continues to ramp up its investment into green hydrogen projects, the supply chain in Scotland is eyeing up a huge potential export market.
UK-based Wild Hydrogen has announced that it is launching a crowdfunding campaign, using the Republic Europe platform, to raise funds for a carbon-negative hydrogen prototype project.
In the race to meet climate targets and secure a resilient energy supply, the UK and Norway have emerged as pivotal partners, leveraging their shared North Sea resources to drive innovation and economic growth.
A green hydrogen project in Wales has been dealt a blow by the UK's health and safety watchdog which has refused to grant consent for hazardous substances over concern for the risk presented to the local population.
The challenge of finding a sustainable alternative to aviation fuel could offer new opportunities for Scotland’s carbon capture and green hydrogen industries, says Neil Kermode, managing director of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney.
BP PLC has warned that it expects profit margins to slump this quarter due to a fall in oil trading and is instead relying on an unlikely source of growth, electric vehicles, to steady the ship this year.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband told industry at the EnergyUK conference in September that reaching net zero, which the government wants to achieve by 2030, will be a matter of “national security”.
Green hydrogen has become a “premium clean fuel” due to the high cost of production, with the nascent fuel “energy intensive but expensive” and increasingly valuable as an energy store, according to UK National Infrastructure Commission commissioner Nick Winser.
Wales and West Utilities (WWU) has commissioned infrastructure firm Costain to investigate the feasibility of blending hydrogen into the gas supply for industrial and commercial gas customers.
The Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) has invested £20 million in hydrogen-electric aviation developer ZeroAvia as pat of its latest funding round.