Q&A on Hydrogen with Energy Leaders at Arup

To drive the net zero progress urgently needed — while offering a boost to the economy — hydrogen must be incorporated into the UK government’s energy plans.
This is the belief of multinational professional services firm Arup, which provides design, engineering, architecture, planning and advisory services across every aspect of the built environment.
In 2024, Arup worked with the Scottish government around increasingly incorporating hydrogen and creating a hydrogen economy.
The firm believes that policymakers can stimulate demand and the tools to ensure hydrogen is able to compete on a level playing field with other decarbonisation pathways, building a resilient system.
It also throws its weight behind the importance of policy and market design, emphasising how government and industries must work together to develop innovative market structures that provide value for money for taxpayers and offer options to de-risk for the industry.
As well as this, the hydrogen economy offers a fantastic opportunity to support high quality jobs which will require highly skilled and trained workers, as well as export opportunities for the UK in a growing international market.
The Scottish Hydrogen Assessment Project, for example, found a potential £25bn (US$30.4bn) in value to the Scottish economy and is expected to create 300,000 new jobs by 2045.
In this Q&A with Energy Digital, Arup’s Simon Evans, Global Digital Energy Leader and David Hogg, Senior Energy Systems Consultant, discuss the benefits of hydrogen and how it can further impact the UK economy.
Q. In your view how does Arup positively contribute to the hydrogen space and decarbonisation efforts?
David: Arup's multidisciplinary approach, which integrates expertise across different fields, is particularly well-suited to hydrogen due to its complexity and the range of factors involved.
By bringing together teams from water, electricity and gas, we occupy a rare space in the industry, with the ability to access specialist knowledge and an understanding of the lessons learned from previous projects to avoid similar problems. This makes feasibility studies and procurement processes more efficient, allowing us to identify potential challenges early and move projects forward more quickly.
Our integrated approach ensures that we work collaboratively to develop new solutions for where they are required, which can support the UK’s ambition to reach its net zero goals.
Q. How can policymakers most effectively stimulate demand for hydrogen to ensure it can compete with other decarbonisation pathways? What specific tools or incentives are needed to create a level playing field for hydrogen in the energy market?
Simon: Incentivising and improving secure and resilient data sharing across the energy market, at scale, is an important step for policy-makers if they are to make hydrogen a major energy source for the UK.
To demonstrate why this is so important, we can look to the relationship between the UK’s gas network data and any future hydrogen infrastructure.
Data from the former will be essential to understanding how the latter can be delivered nationally, as they will be using the same pathways. However, whilst understanding of need for this data sharing is clear, progress towards delivering it is slow.
We developed a study for the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero which outlines the government’s opportunity to support and fast track the creation of a robust energy system data sharing infrastructure.
Our study found that the main obstacles to making this a reality were actually socio, not technical challenges. To overcome this, we need to foster a collaborative attitude and approach across the industry, which will better support decision-making and enable the inclusion of diverse perspectives.
Q. The Scottish Hydrogen Assessment Project highlighted significant economic and employment benefits from developing a hydrogen economy. What strategies should the UK government implement to ensure the creation of high-quality jobs in the hydrogen sector? How can these strategies support export opportunities in the growing international market?
David: The hydrogen sector is continuing to grow and with that we are seeing an uptick in job creation. However, the overarching challenge remains: we need projects to get off the ground.
During the early stages of a project’s planning, we are focussed on assessing viability — whether a project can meet its technical, financial and operational goals — and this is where we uncover stumbling blocks.
Each hydrogen initiative requires collaboration between local authorities, regulatory bodies and utility companies to ensure all necessary elements are in place. When this coordination fails, companies often abandon their hydrogen projects — a frustratingly common outcome in the sector.
To tackle this, one of the government’s first ambitions should be to encourage greater communication and information sharing across a project’s stakeholders — and ensuring this is done as early as possible in a project’s development.
The intended consequence of creating high-quality jobs in the hydrogen sector requires government and industry getting these foundational steps right first.
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