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Executive Summary
The Forum for Renewable Energy Development in Scotland ( FREDS) has established the Hydrogen Energy Group ( HEG) to examine and report on the potential and opportunities that hydrogen and fuel cell technology represents for Scotland in the short and long term. The conclusions of HEG are expressed in a number of future visions and achievable goals. The potential is immense and well recognised.
Less well documented is the comparatively negligible investment in hydrogen and fuel cell technology in Scotland and the UK in stark contrast to some of our European neighbours, North America and Japan.
To redress the balance and ensure that Scotland, with its unique resources, takes a lead in selected market sectors, HEG have articulated two pressing investment requirements. The first is a series of tactical short-term measures to 2010 that urgently need pump-priming finance in the order of the £2.5 million per annum over the next 3 years. These short-term measures are a re-statement of the HEG interim report recommendations which are now further supported and justified by independent work undertaken by IPA Consulting. They are:
1. Support for further demonstration projects involving hydrogen use in remote or off-grid communities in Scotland.
2. Projects are funded to support unique Scottish technology that involves fuel cell design or production.
3. Projects are funded to enable applications of hydrogen technologies and fuel cells, which are currently at the research or development stage, to be demonstrated commercially and value engineered for future market entry.
4. An inter-university research centre be established in Scotland to create fuel cell and hydrogen-based intellectual property for future exploitation within Scotland.
The second series of recommendations are longer-term measures in support of strategic goals that can be achieved up to 2020 within a policy framework using increased levels of fiscal incentives and substantive programme improvements.
HEG conclude that 10,000 jobs and GVA to Scotland's economy of £500 million per annum are the potential benefits available from such an approach. In order for Scotland to achieve its 40% renewable target by 2020 it will almost certainly require hydrogen and fuel cell systems to balance and integrate many diverse and intermittent sources of energy.
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