Outputs from the Third Call for proposals - June 2008

The DfT Horizons programme supports innovative horizon scanning research that anticipates longer-term challenges and opportunities that the Department might face 10 – 30 years in the future.

Traditionally, the transport sector has had a heavy reliance on hydrocarbon fuels, however, a range of technologies and options are being developed that may help break this dependency. One of these possibilities is the use of hydrogen as a fuel.

In December 2005, the DfT held an open call for projects to explore different aspects of the practicality and timing of the introduction of the infrastructure required to support hydrogen-fuelled vehicles.

The delivery and storage of hydrogen is one of the key challenges for the introduction of hydrogen as a low or zero carbon fuel for transport. Other issues include the very high cost of fuel cell technology and manufacture costs of hydrogen - though in terms of scientific research these issues were considered of more relevance to industry and academia.

This call was set up in response to a combination of:

• The Future of Transport White Paper published in 2004, which acknowledged the potential future role of hydrogen in delivering clean, low carbon transport and set out a number of measures to support the development and use of hydrogen for transport.
• Development of vehicles powered by hydrogen either using an internal combustion engine or in fuel-cells, and a number of pilot schemes.
• In 2006, one of the main perceived constraints to introducing hydrogen fuelled vehicles in the UK was the lack of a refuelling infrastructure. Such an infrastructure has no precedent and there was a clear need to alert the Department to any potential issues in good time to make informed decisions.

The Government’s Low Carbon Transport Innovation Strategy (LICTIS), announced since the start-up of these projects, also outlines that hydrogen powered vehicles and fuel cells are among the few known technologies that could lead to large sale carbon reductions from transport over the longer term but, as yet, these technologies are not ready for the mass markets

Five projects were chosen by the selection panel following peer review of the proposals:

1. State of the Art Modelling of Hydrogen Infrastructure Development for the UK: Geographical, temporal and technological optimisation modelling - Policy Studies Institute.

2. Removing the economic and institutional barriers to a hydrogen future - AEA Energy & Environment.

3. Public Engagement with Hydrogen Infrastructures in Transport - University of Salford.

4. Assessing the safety of delivery and storage of hydrogen - Health and Safety Laboratory (PDF, 875 KB).

5. A review of the regulatory framework around hydrogen refuelling - Health and Safety Laboratory (PDF, 248 KB).