Viewpoint

Sampathkumaran Hariharan, consulting partner and Ankit Sharma, utilities account executive at Wipro are two of the consultancy’s hydrogen subject matter experts. Following this industry debate, they share their ambition to back the creation of a new central open data platform for hydrogen transition information.

Despite some recent disappointment around large scale demonstration projects for hydrogen in GB, Wipro remains committed to exploring and advancing its role in the energy transition, alongside industry.

The government’s decision at the end of last year to approve hydrogen blending of up to 20% across the gas grid means there remains a strong foundation for the industry to build from as evidence from SGN’s Fife trial emerges and safety standards fall into place.

Combined with highly targeted development strategies which combine information on hydrogen production plans and the development of potential industrial and transport hubs using hydrogen, these factors should allow for strong business cases to be built for localised use of hydrogen for domestic heating.

As was identified by participants in this debate the emergence of the NESO should play a transformational role in our understanding of the role hydrogen will play alongside a decarbonised power grid in the future. We hope to see the NESO working closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to build out national decarbonisation roadmaps and we absolutely agree with our industry guests that the RESPs should support an appreciation of how hydrogen fits into diverse local decarbonisation pathways. It was heartening to hear the commitment of our debate participants to work productively with these new entities and to take an adaptive, positive approach to the future.

In addition to the creation of the NESO and RESPs however, Wipro sees enormous value in the idea of creating an central open data platform which can help support transparency of information and consistency of messaging around hydrogen prospects – for all use cases, not just heating.

We feel that a platform such as this would support better understanding of the total carbon impact that a thriving hydrogen economy could deliver. It would also support the kind of targeted, community-specific, segmented engagement campaigns that our industry guests so clearly felt are essential to effectively land a message with consumers that hydrogen could – safely – become part of their daily lives.

In time, a trusted, open data platform for advancing our understanding of hydrogen would also help us model how different hydrogen scenarios would impact on the customer bill and on industry settlement processes. It could become a key source of insight, confidence and innovation.

We are keen to engage with industry and a wider eco-system of collaborators on this idea and to demonstrate our own commitment to supporting opportunities for hydrogen in GB’s energy transition.