The UK Government has been warned it is at risk of “missing the boat” with hydrogen although the island nation’s geology and offshore wind mean it still has time to become a major renewables force in the long term.

Speaking at the opening session on the second day of H2 View’s ‘Making Hydrogen Happen: An Ecosystem for Green Hydrogen’ at the London Science Museum, Matthew Knight, Head of Market and Government Affairs, Siemens Energy, said, “We wrote to the UK Government last week with a very stark message saying ‘you are missing the boat’. We have seen hydrogen business models slip about six months in the last year. There’s a whole crop of much larger, more attractive projects that will be awarded by the turn of the year in other parts of Europe.”

But he remains convinced that the UK will end up with big green and blue hydrogen industries because it has the geology and offshore wind.

“Both blue and green hydrogen can be done in the UK, so it’s our duty to make it happen, and happen quickly,” he said. “This industry will have failed if blue and green are not at multi-gigawatt scale by the end of this decade.”