August 2021 - read

Vanguard joins the UKHFCA and some initial reflections on the UK Government’s hydrogen strategy

The Vanguard team are pleased to share our latest news and views on the freshly-launched UK Hydrogen Strategy.

 

This week Vanguard has been formally accepted as a member of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association. We are delighted to be joining our industry peers in the UK HFCA and getting involved in work and collaborations that will boost the burgeoning hydrogen economy both here in the UK and globally.

 

We have been reading the UK Government’s hydrogen strategy that was published earlier this week. Firstly, we are glad to see a clear understanding and recognition of the challenges and barriers that companies like Vanguard face in developing our technology and being able to scale in a relatively new sector. Our key reflection on the Strategy is the urgent need for the Government to be prepared to stand in and actively support and stimulate both the demand side for hydrogen – through enabling the development of application use cases – as well as supporting the supply side – through investment and commitment right now to enable the scaling up of hydrogen production and the rapidly-developing hydrogen supply industry.

 

The Strategy has an impressive list of commitments and, if delivered, they will make a huge difference. But as a start-up business investing heavily in R&D, our focus is on being able to develop and scale while being agile in order to survive and grow – multiple public consultations are not going to provide a market in the near term. The time is ripe for active support at scale right now to promote and accelerate our developing sector. We very much hope that the Government will deliver on these commitments as quickly as possible – and we will be using our position as a new UKHFCA member to play a part in championing the sector and promoting the technologies, the opportunities, and the value, that we are all creating right now for the benefit of our economy and for the environment.