Scotland has vast renewable energy resources. Subject to planning and consenting decisions and finding a route to market, we have a potential pipeline of over 40 GW of offshore wind generation projects. This could enable the use of surplus electrons for the creation of low-cost renewable hydrogen.
This generating potential opens up new economic opportunities for our nation to become a leading producer and exporter of renewable hydrogen. International demand for hydrogen is growing, with Germany, the EU and the UK Government all increasing their respective hydrogen production ambitions in 2022. Countries that need hydrogen are now looking beyond their borders to nations that can produce and provide that hydrogen at scale.
Given how well-placed Scotland is to service future export markets for hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives at scale, hydrogen, powered by renewable electricity, could present Scotland’s greatest industrial opportunity since oil and gas was discovered in the North Sea. We are already embracing the development of a hydrogen economy here in Scotland by making available £100m in capital funding for renewable hydrogen projects.
The first tranche of our hydrogen investment programme, the £10m Hydrogen Innovation Scheme, opened in June 2022 and is supporting innovation in the production, storage, and integration of renewable hydrogen in our energy system.
Our priority is to get as much renewable hydrogen into the energy system as quickly as possible, while also supporting the establishment of low-carbon hydrogen production at scale in the 2020s, linked to carbon capture and storage (CCS). Economic impact estimates based on scenarios developed for the Scottish Government indicate the development of a hydrogen economy in Scotland could mean between 70,000 to over 300,000 jobs could be protected or created with potential Gross Value Added (GVA) impacts of between £5 billion and £25 billion a year by 2045 depending on the scale of production and the extent of exports.
