Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In a very concrete way, three buses have been put in place and are operating. They are giving us the experience of knowing what it is like to run longer heavy-duty services. Of course, they do not give rise to pollution or emissions. When hydrogen is burned, all one gets is water. Therefore, it is a very clean fuel. That is giving us some experience.

Hydrogen can be used for all of these different things, but it will not be commercially appropriate in every sector. In fact, we can make a hierarchy of least appropriate to most appropriate. Electricity is something that can be generated but it is very hard to store. Hydrogen gives the ability to take when in excess and then use it when in deficit. It allows us to balance the variability of wind. If it is a very windy day and we cannot use all the electricity being generated, it can be stored somewhere until we can reuse it. In some of the hard to decarbonise sectors, such as the long-distance shipping, aviation and heavy trucking, there is a great deal of potential, even if it is not ideal. For example, for heating a home, it appears that direct hydrogen gas heating is not likely to replace natural gas. As a result, we will be looking at the use of heat pumps instead.

There is an EU hydrogen strategy, which means that this matter is being talked about in Europe as well. The strategy was published in 2020 and it comes with an important new legislative package for hydrogen and decarbonisation. That was completed in December 2021. These two initiatives seek to create the conditions for a shift from natural gas to renewable and low-carbon gases and, in particular, hydrogen and biomethane. We have a very undeveloped biomethane sector in Ireland in comparison with Germany. There is a great deal of room there for what are considered to be alternative gases that do not involve as many climate change aspects and that give rise to much reduced pollution.