The Climate Change Committee set out that it saw no role for hydrogen in heating buildings, in its advice to the UK government on the seventh Carbon Budget. The position was cited by the Energy Saving Trust in its response to a Northern Ireland Department for the Economy consultation on using biofuels to move heating away from fossil fuels, published on 22 October 20251.
The Energy Saving Trust's response records the committee's view in these words:
"the Climate Change Committee indicated that they believed there was "no role for hydrogen in heating buildings.""
The same response sets out the approach taken in Great Britain, where it says support exists for limiting the use of all forms of bioenergy beyond 2035 to homes where no other clean heating solutions are available1. It notes that the legislation creating a renewable liquid heating fuel obligation, under section 159 of the Energy Act 2023, does not apply to Northern Ireland, unlike the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation which covers all nations of the UK1.
On costs, the response states that biofuels are considerably more expensive than their fossil fuel equivalents, and that renewable liquid fuels for heating carry an additional duty of approximately 10p per litre, while no duty is applied to kerosene for heating use1. It also records that boilers running on a mix of kerosene and up to 30% HVO do not need to be converted1.
The seventh Carbon Budget advice report itself is not among the published material, and the date the committee made the statement, and the full reasoning behind it, have not been reported here1.
Why it matters for households
Hydrogen has been presented as one possible route to lower-carbon home heating, and the committee's position bears directly on whether that route is treated as viable at national level. For a household, the practical effect is that the case for keeping a gas connection in the expectation of a future hydrogen supply is weakened, and the alternatives that remain are the established ones: electrified heating, heat pumps, and for homes off the gas grid, liquid fuels and other options. The policy position on hydrogen for home heating is where that debate sits, and the trials that were intended to test hydrogen in homes are the practical counterpart. What a home can actually install, and what it costs to run, is a separate question from what the committee advises, and the changes needed to convert a home to hydrogen heating remain untested at household scale.
The wider context is the carbon budgets and net zero framework that the committee advises on, and the way heating choices feed into a home's energy independence. For households in Northern Ireland, where the biofuel consultation applies, the energy and buildings policy that the Welsh Government controls offers a comparison of how devolved administrations set their own heating rules.
What happens next
The seventh Carbon Budget advice report has been published, but no government decision on hydrogen's role in heating buildings, and no dated next step arising from the committee's position, has been reported1.
Sources1 cited
- Using biofuel for heating: consultation response - Energy Saving Trust, energysavingtrust.org.uk