Completed Clean Energy Climate, Earth & Environment

Hydrogen Infrastructure Uncertainty Management for Heat Decarbonisation

Funder EPSRC (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation University College London Source-published name: University College London
Funding £1.6M
Period Mar 2021 — Jan 2026

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

The UK’s plan to switch home heating from natural gas to hydrogen carries a price tag that no one has systematically calculated—until now. This project, called HUMAN, tackles a blind spot in the government’s Net-Zero strategy. While policymakers have committed to decarbonising heat by 2050, they have not rigorously accounted for the uncertainties that could derail a hydrogen-based system: unpredictable heat demand, fluctuating technology performance, and economic shifts. The power grid already struggles with intermittent renewables; adding an uncertain hydrogen heating network multiplies the risk. HUMAN will model these unknowns across the entire UK, from local gas pipes to national electricity lines. If successful, the project will produce the first open-source, user-friendly tool that lets energy planners test different hydrogen-versus-electricity heating scenarios under realistic uncertainty. This could prevent costly policy mistakes—for example, overbuilding hydrogen infrastructure that turns out to be inefficient, or underinvesting in electric heat pumps. The immediate impact is on infrastructure planning and public spending, not on household appliances. The research is applied, not fundamental: it directly informs the choices that energy regulators, grid operators, and local authorities will make over the next decade.

View original technical description
The goal of the HUMAN project is to provide the first systematic analysis on the cost of uncertainties related to the hydrogen-led decarbonisation of heat. Sustainable decarbonisation pathways require uncertainty-resilient policies. These policies can be informed by acknowledging proactively the uncertainties inflicted by technology performance, volatility in heat demand and socio-economic fluctuations. With the power sector becoming increasingly reliant on intermittent renewable sources and the Government's commitment to "Net-Zero" by 2050, the role of hydrogen towards heat decarbonisation and the related uncertainties need to be urgently explored. The project considers strategic and operational decisions related to the deployment of a hydrogen-led system and its interaction with the power grid across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Employing the tools developed within the project the optimal mix of electrification and hydrogen-based decarbonisation of heat will be explored at a UK-wide level. Using novel uncertainty modelling methods, the impact of uncertainties related to the heat sector and the hydrogen production technologies will be analysed to derive uncertainty-informed transition pathways. Finally, HUMAN proposes to disseminate an open-source platform with user-friendly interface to enhance interpretability among energy policy practitioners and enable the investigation of alternative uncertainty-informed scenarios for heat decarbonisation.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

David Michael Reiner (Co-Investigator)Lazaros Papageorgiou (Principal Investigator)Vasileios Charitopoulos (Co-Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Hydrogen's value in the energy system (HYVE)
Utilising hydrogen to mitigate intermittency in renewable generation
Hydrogen economy benefits and risks: Tools development and policies implementation to mitigate possible climate impacts
Zero-Carbon Emission Integrated Cooling, Heating and Power (ICHP) Networks
Use hydrogen for heat but not directly

Original classification

Research Grant

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