Did you know that, from 2025, the government was planning to impose a £118 / year charge on domestic energy bills to cover the cost of producing hydrogen. Me neither, and I try to keep an eye on such things.
But now it's not, as it has decided to charge the hydrogen industry instead. The announcement is a bit of virtue signalling, I suppose. Labour, rather than welcoming a bit of help for the poor and needy, said the move was a humiliating U-turn. Desperate times. The industry will likely be passing on those taxes to whomsoever its customers are. Not me I trust.
Now all the government has to do is to transfer all those renewable taxes from electricity consumers to gas consumers as it has promised, as it needs to de-incentivise the use of gas, and cheapen electricity costs. Then it might reform the electricity market so that the subsidised cost of renewables is accurately reflected in the price people pay. No breath holding advised.
The BBC's PM programme had extensive coverage of the hydrogen as a domestic heat source issue. It began 5 minutes in with a vox pop in Redcar, with a government minister on at 13 minutes. He was positive, and said a few interesting (in the Chinese sense) things about safety. 44 minutes in Prof David Cebon from Cambridge pointed to a few hydrogen home truths which made me wonder why anyone believes that there is any point in even thinking about trying to heat our homes with the stuff when there are more important uses for it.
Happily someone is, hence that £118 each (and every year) that we've narrowly avoided. Phew.
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