Dr. James Carton:

For the hydrogen strategy we need to think generally around our carbon budgets. Ireland, at some point in the future, will have to start sucking carbon out of the atmosphere because we are most likely going to go over our carbon budgets. That is one thing to mention. If we are going down a hydrogen route, we can really easily, given all the comments in this room, go with a green hydrogen strategy. Frequently, as we go into 2030 and beyond, we will produce way more energy than batteries can store and that we can move in our cables, so we can produce lots of hydrogen. It can be green. That is a thing to think about. Whoever is pulling together the hydrogen strategy needs to think about that

. The certification process is really important. The fact I can prove I have an electrolyser in the middle of an ocean beside a wind farm means it is obvious it is green hydrogen. It is not so obvious though once the hydrogen goes into a pipe, ship, vehicle or industry. The certification process of hydrogen full stop, namely, whatever colour it is, needs to exist. This is developed through the EU and through a number of projects through Europe and it exists so effectively we will apply similar processes. What this does, more than us being able to sell it as a green product that is guaranteed Irish and green to export, maybe, is it engages with public and with people. This is not a greenwashing exercise. There is certification here. We are producing it. Our strategy says it is going to be green and that needs to be embedded in whatever strategy is produced.

The other point was hydrogen valleys. If we are producing hydrogen over the next number of years, from an early deployment point of view we are probably going to be on the scale of tens to maybe hundreds of megawatts. We see Ireland could produce probably 500 MW of hydrogen by 2030 if we really wanted to. That would be used to decarbonise heavy industry and some heavy transport, for example. We think that is possible and achievable by 2030 if the push is there from the renewable deployment to match that. The key with those early deployment projects is production, use and decarbonisation probably fairly close to each other so the need for complex energy carriers like ammonia, certainly in the early years, is eliminated and the cost of moving hydrogen around or even storing it for long durations is also eliminated. Again, it gives us experience. It gives our workforce experience, knowledge and skills. It gives the education people routes to upskill people through SOLAS, universities or technical courses. It gives us time to learn and be prepared to scale up past 2030 for hydrogen. I hope that answers the Senator's question.