Action on Climate Change
The world is at a cross roads – we must act now to address climate change and avoid the consequences of apathy or inaction.
Tackling climate change in a meaningful and deliverable way, to the benefit of all in society, is what drives Progressive. We exist to translate necessary technologies, such as hydrogen and CCUS, from concept to deployment to make a material difference to climate change.
Put simply, we do what we do because we believe it is the right thing to do. By working with the government, industry partners, suppliers and consumers we are able to create deliverable projects that deliver on tackling climate change whilst protecting the interests of all stakeholder groups.
Why Hydrogen?
Within the next 30 years our energy system will need to undergo fundamental change to achieve the goal of being net zero by 2050.
At the moment, flexibility in our energy system is met by fossil fuels because they are storable and versatile – storing electrical energy at the scale needed to balance heat, power and transport at a national level isn’t tenable with today’s technology. Hydrogen provides the ability to store low carbon energy to act as a shock absorber for the increasingly variable nature of our energy system and its future needs. In doing so hydrogen offers a unique opportunity to decarbonise industry, unlock fuel cell technology, provide low-carbon flexible power and heat our homes reliability
The deployment of hydrogen in a risk-managed way will be critical to achieving the UK’s energy ambitions. The first step along that journey will be industrial conversion and network blending at 20%, as this will decouple the adoption of purpose build hydrogen-ready appliances with the development a hydrogen supply chain – this is the governing principle of our HyNet programme.
Why CCUS?
Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) alongside hydrogen production will be critical to decarbonising the UK energy supplies.
Achieving net-zero can only be achieved by capturing material quantities of carbon to offset sectors of the economy which cannot reach zero-carbon such as agriculture. CCUS is a proven technology with over 20 years of safe experience worldwide.
In the short term CCUS unlocks low carbon hydrogen production from natural gas, which is substantially lower cost than alternative methods, and can be delivered at substantial scale quickly. On a longer timeframe, CCUS coupled with biogenic hydrogen would deliver a negative emissions energy supply vector.
Deploying CCUS infrastructure is an integral element of our HyNet programme.