Recommendation 20

The Government should, as soon as possible, identify a portfolio of “no-regrets” investments into long-duration energy storage projects. This should include commissioning a pilot project that combines onsite electrolysis, hydrogen storage in salt caverns (on the scale of hundreds of GWh) and electricity generation from hydrogen. Ideally, this should be a part of, or close to, the existing hydrogen clusters. Lessons learned from this project, in terms of what is required in skills, planning and capital/operational costs should be published as the project progresses to develop policy and de-risk future projects. The Government should set out the scale of storage of the projects it intends to support with its hydrogen transportation and storage business model.