Wesley Tivnen, Commercial & Technical Director
The Hydrogen UK Annual Conference felt like a turning point. After years of targets and long-range ambition, the conversation has shifted to delivery and where hydrogen can create near-term value in the energy system being built today.
I joined the panel on Hydrogen’s Role in Decarbonising UK Industry & Power alongside NESO, Equinor, ESB, Heidelberg Materials and Honeywell.
The discussion reflected the wider mood: more grounded, more specific, and focused on what it actually takes to get projects built.
Where hydrogen fits
Hydrogen’s role is coming into sharper focus. Rather than being a catch-all solution, the emphasis is now on where it adds most value - and where early deployment can build the demand, infrastructure and supply chains needed for scale.
Industrial decarbonisation, parts of transport and the power sector are emerging as priorities. In these areas, electrification alone is not enough. Hydrogen’s energy density, storability and dispatchability give it a distinct, hard-to-replicate role.
In the power system, that role is flexibility.
A grid dominated by wind and solar will increasingly swing between surplus and shortfall. Managing that variability requires dispatchable power that can step in when renewable output drops.
Hydrogen – spanning production, storage and flexible generation – is increasingly part of that solution.
The flexibility case
Long-duration hydrogen storage offers something short-duration technologies cannot: the ability to store energy over days or weeks and return it during extended periods of low renewable output.
This is critical for two reasons. First, it provides dispatchable capacity as fossil generation retires. Second, it captures surplus renewable energy that would otherwise be curtailed.
As renewable capacity grows, so too will periods of excess generation. Hydrogen creates a pathway to store that energy and redeploy it when needed, improving renewable economics by increasing capture rates and reducing waste.
In this way, hydrogen complements renewable expansion. It makes a renewables-led grid more viable, resilient and secure.
What projects need to succeed
A key question on the panel was what needs to be true for projects to stack up.
Commercially, projects need clear, bankable revenue support and stable policy to reduce risk and lower the cost of capital. Long-term market signals must properly value flexibility, resilience and decarbonisation.
Clarity in system planning also matters. When hydrogen’s role is visible in central planning, it gives investors confidence that today’s infrastructure will be needed tomorrow.
Operationally, the value chain must develop in step. Production, storage and generation are interdependent; if one lags, projects stall.
At Haldane Energy, our focus is on integrating these elements into a closed-loop system. This reduces external dependencies, manages risk across the value chain and strengthens the investment case.
Grid infrastructure, planning and consenting, supply chains and workforce capacity must also keep pace.
While a strong domestic supply chain is important, international partnerships will be key to accelerating deployment and reducing costs.
Closing the gap
One of the most candid discussions focused on the gap between ambition and delivery.
The challenge is not capital, its bankable demand. Investors are ready, but projects need clearer long-term signals and stronger demand certainty to reach final investment decisions.
Both government and industry have a role. Government must provide stable, delivery-focused policy. Industry must bring forward credible projects, partnerships and demand commitments. When these align, deployment can accelerate rapidly.
The encouraging message from the conference is that the fundamentals are in place: world-class projects, deep expertise and capital ready to invest.
What’s needed now is momentum and a shared commitment to close the gap between what has been promised and what is being built.
The case is clear. The technology is ready. The opportunity is real, and the window to capture it is now.
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