Expert Industry Insights

This section provides expert UK industry insights into key hydrogen technologies that have the potential of rapid commercialisation. These technologies, namely Hydrogen Storage, Fuel Cells, and Electrolysers, will not only accelerate the adoption of hydrogen as a low-carbon alternative fuel within the UK, but also cement the UK’s position as an exporter of hydrogen technologies globally. These technologies present with high Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) and high Manufacturing Readiness Levels (MRLs).

For the purposes of industry capability mapping, various companies were contacted to provide their expert opinion on their specific hydrogen technology, as well as the UK hydrogen economy in general. Interview-based questions were presented to the technical leaders of these companies, spread over two rounds. The first round included an expression of interest to engage with HI-ACT, and what expectations these companies have from the government, funding bodies, policymakers, and the academic community to kick-start the hydrogen economy in earnest. The second-round interview provided the participants with a range of questions, divided into four sections: Company Categorisation, Best Practices and Emerging Technologies, System Integration, and Policy and Regulations. In the first section, Company Categorisation, the participants were asked to provide the number of employees (hence forming the basis of their company classification as an SME or large corporation), the TRL and MRL of their technology, technology application sectors, manufacturing capabilities, and biggest technological challenges towards technology commercialisation. The second section, Best Practices and Emerging Technologies, delves into the specific technology challenges, key performance indicators, near-term performance predictions, product safety, certification, and maintenance, and academic Research and Development collaborations. The third section, System Integration, focuses on key whole system integration opportunities for specific hydrogen technologies through client engagement during design, procurement, and delivery, cross-sector skills transferability, and multi-system integration for energy efficiency enhancement. The final section, Policy and Regulations, provided the participants an opportunity to comment on regulatory and policy barriers, incentivisation and penalisation pathways towards accelerated commercialisation, and streamlined funding streams for continued research and development for product enhancement.

The interview questions were provided to the participants two weeks prior to the interview date and were reverted to HI-ACT before the interview. The participants engaged with HI-ACT over a one-hour one-to-one interview to discuss their answers, provide in-depth clarifications on critical questions, and discuss the future direction of these key UK hydrogen technologies. The following companies, representing a majority of the UK hydrogen industry, took part in the HI-ACT interview series: Ceres Power, Clean Power H2, Glacier Energy, HSSMI, Hypermotive Ltd, Intelligent Energy, Luxfer Gas Cylinders, Oort Energy, Oxford Nanosystems, and Wessington Cryogenics.