The government's Heat and Buildings Strategy, published in October 2021, sets out a plan to end the installation of new fossil fuel boilers by 2035 and to increase the market capacity for heat pump installations, the trade association Hydrogen UK states in written evidence to the Public Accounts Committee1.
Hydrogen UK's submission, published in April 2024, says the National Audit Office's report in March 2024 "highlights the challenges faced in decarbonising home heating, including delays and cancellations in hydrogen heating trials and lower than expected uptake in the Boiler Upgrade Scheme"1. The association represents organisations across hydrogen production, transportation, storage and end use, including boiler maker Baxi Heating, gas networks Cadent, SGN and Northern Gas Networks, and suppliers Centrica, EDF Energy and SSE1.
On heat pumps, Hydrogen UK cites Climate Change Committee findings that the UK is not on track to reach its ambition of 600,000 annual installations by 2028. It says approximately 40,000 heat pumps were installed in 2023, a 20 per cent increase on 2022, a rate that would still leave installations short of the 2028 target1. It argues hydrogen should be considered alongside electrification, stating that peak demand for heat is around five times greater than for electricity, and that a balanced approach using hydrogen distribution infrastructure, hydrogen boilers and hybrid hydrogen heat pumps "could bring system cost savings up to £6.2 billion compared to pure electrification"1.
The submission disputes the National Infrastructure Commission's advice in the Second National Infrastructure Assessment that there is no public policy case for hydrogen heating. Hydrogen UK says the assessment excluded the results of scenarios 1 and 5 from the Aurora Energy Research study commissioned for it, and that the two scenarios including hydrogen heating show higher electricity system costs "driven by an earlier retirement of fossil fuel heating technologies, which causes power demand to rise sooner in the forecast"1.
"The Government's Heat and Buildings Strategy, published in October of the same year, sets forth an ambitious plan to end the installation of new fossil fuel boilers by 2035 and to significantly increase the market capacity for heat pump installations."
Hydrogen UK also raises the cost of decommissioning the gas grid, which it says transports energy to heat almost 85 per cent of UK homes. It cites an Arup report commissioned by the National Infrastructure Commission and Ofgem estimating decommissioning costs, for what cannot be repurposed, at approximately £17 billion in the Balanced Hydrogen scenario and £25.2 billion in the Low Hydrogen scenario1. It supports clearer government guidance on hydrogen's role in domestic heating by 2026, and says the Whitby Neighbourhood Trial's mismanagement and the cancellation of the Redcar Village Trial have set back research and data collection, while SGN's H100 Fife project used an opt-in approach with community engagement sessions1.
Why it matters for households
The 2035 date applies to the installation of new fossil fuel boilers, not to the continued use of existing ones, and the strategy also commits to growing heat pump market capacity1. For a household, the practical questions are what replaces a gas boiler at the end of its life, what grant support is available, and whether hydrogen will reach a given street. On the last point, the evidence records that decisions on hydrogen for home heating are not expected before 2026, and that some trials intended to inform them are behind schedule or cancelled1. Hydrogen UK's figures on grid decommissioning indicate that the future of the gas network itself carries costs that would ultimately sit somewhere in household bills, though the submission does not say how they would be recovered1. The submission also notes that hydrogen-ready boilers are described as comparative in cost to existing natural gas boilers, without giving figures1.
What happens next
Hydrogen UK supports the National Audit Office recommendation that the government provide clearer guidance on hydrogen's role in domestic heating by 2026, and asks for specific criteria and timelines ahead of that decision to give industry transparency1. It also calls for government to share information between countries running hydrogen heating trials, citing pilots in the Netherlands and Japan, and to take a more accountable role in overseeing future hydrogen village trials in the UK1.
Sources1 cited
- [](https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/129600/pdf/), committees.parliament.uk