PLANS to use hydrogen to help heat UK homes and cut the country’s carbon emissions took a big step forward this week with a £14.9 million funding boost.

The money, approved by regulator Ofgem, will fund two field trials on public gas networks, blending hydrogen with natural gas to heat around 750 homes in the North West in each of the year-long trials.

Over the course of the four-year programme, starting in 2019, the team behind ‘HyDeploy2’ will monitor the performance and safety of using hydrogen in this way.

The aim is to build support for a much wider roll-out. If adopted across the UK, using hydrogen like this could save the same amount of carbon as taking 2.5 million cars off the road.

A major benefit of this blending approach is that it comes with no disruption to customers because they do not need to change their gas appliances or the pipes to their homes in order to use blended gas.

Engineers working with Cadent Gas will now identify a suitable location for the North West trial, while Northern Gas Networks will conduct trials in the North East and Yorkshire.

“This funding is fantastic news,” said Simon Fairman, director of safety and network strategy at Cadent. “It means we can press on with a game-changing vision: to prove hydrogen can safely keep us warm, as well as significantly reduce our carbon footprint.

“We know our existing gas networks are in good shape to help the UK meet its climate change targets.

"Blended hydrogen in this way means customers will use gas tomorrow as they do today, without any disruption or need to change their pipes or appliances.”