Hydrogen research hub awarded £11 million funding

UK-HyRES, the UK Hub for Research Challenges in Hydrogen and Alternative Liquid Fuels, aims to become a global centre of excellence in hydrogen research and to deliver practical hydrogen and alternative liquid fuel technologies that are safe and environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has announced that the hub will receive £11 million as part of a larger £53 million investment in research to decarbonise the nation’s energy sector.

The hub will be led by Professor Tim Mays, from the University of Bath’s Department of Chemical Engineering. Core universities within the hub include Portsmouth, Sheffield, St Andrews, Surrey, University College London and Warwick.

UK-HyRES will identify, prioritise and seek sustainable solutions to research challenges that will accelerate the take-up of hydrogen and alternative fuels (AF) on the journey to a net zero economy.

Professor Tim Mays said: “Research into how we make, store, distribute and use hydrogen and other AFs to power the energy, heating and mobility systems in our society is absolutely essential if we are to achieve our national targets of reaching net zero by 2050. At Bath we have the expertise and ambition to deliver this important work, and this major funding from UKRI is crucial for us to develop the UK-HyRES hub into a research centre of national strategic importance and global impact.”

UK-HyRES will also provide a network and collaboration platform for fundamental research, and be a focus for industry, policy and other stakeholder communities, to tackle research challenges that underpin the production, storage, distribution and end use of hydrogen and AFs. The hub’s unique structure has been developed to deliver maximum impact – focusing on four technical themes (production, storage, distribution and end use), and also four cross-cutting themes (safety, environmental, economic and social sustainability).

A pipeline of national, interdisciplinary research projects that can deliver practical hydrogen and AF technologies will also be coordinated by the UK-HyRES team. This will include efforts to de-couple fossil fuels from our energy system and deliver greener energy for transport, heating, power and industrial decarbonisation. The team will develop UK-HyRES into a global centre of excellence and impact in hydrogen and alternative liquid fuel research within its five-year funding window and into the future.

Total funding for UK-HyRES now exceeds £26 million following other supporting investments from the core university partners and industrial and civic collaborators. These include the West of England Combined Authority, Ceres Power, GKN Aerospace, the Health and Safety Executive, INEOS Technologies, the Western Gateway Partnership and Siemens Energy.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalhydrogenreview.com/hydrogen/12072023/hydrogen-research-hub-awarded-11-million-funding/