How Energy & Utility Skills is supporting this potential switch with the upskilling of engineers for 100% hydrogen
The UK Government’s Heat and Building Strategy sets out the objective to phase out the installation of natural gas boilers from 2035. Replacing natural gas with hydrogen for heating has the potential to form a key option for decarbonising heat in buildings.
The Government is working with industry, regulators, and others to deliver a range of hydrogen training, research, development, and testing projects to assess the feasibility, costs, and benefits of using 100% hydrogen for heating. This work includes a pioneering programme of community trials.
As set out in the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, the Government will support industry to deliver a neighbourhood trial by 2023, village scale trials by 2025, and a potential hydrogen heated town before the end of the decade.
As part of this delivery, Energy & Utility Skills is working with industry partners to deliver hydrogen training courses UK and answer the key questions of how gas engineers can be upskilled to a hydrogen engineer to ensure the safe installation of appliances fuelled by 100% hydrogen.
Hydrogen Training
Building on a strong record as the gas industry Standard Setting Body with ongoing work on the Gas Network’s Safe Control of Operations, Energy & Utility Skills was a key partner in the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s Hy4Heat programme of work to determine the skills and standards that will be needed for the hydrogen workforce.
Energy & Utility Skills has developed a Hydrogen Competency Framework establishing a series of sequential components designed to ensure any future work done to install and maintain new hydrogen appliances will be completed safely and will only be carried out by hydrogen– competent, Gas Safe Registered engineers.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has appointed a consortium led by Energy & Utility Skills and the Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers (IGEM) to facilitate the development of safety-critical Technical Standards and their delivery and implementation within the existing Competence Framework, as well as delivering a robust and enduring foundation for gas engineering training and competence.
Get in touch
If you want to get in touch with us about our work on the competence of gas engineers involved in the installation of appliances fuelled by 100% hydrogen, contact Lucy Ritchie, Senior Client Manager for Energy.
Webinars
- Preparing Training Providers and Assessment Centres for a transition to hydrogen
February 2022 - Gas Engineer Competence for Hydrogen Installations
December 2021