The North of England’s gas distributer, Northern Gas Networks (NGN), today welcomed influential think tank IPPR North’s latest report on north’s energy economy.

‘Who will power the powerhouse?’ explored the untapped energy potential of the north of England, finding that there is the opportunity to decarbonise the gas sector by converting significant parts of the gas network to run on hydrogen.

This has the additional benefit of incentivising the development of CCS technology, providing an alternative route to achieving realising carbon storage following the termination of a government competition.

Previous research, conducted by KPMG, found that decarbonising the gas network with hydrogen could, in the long term, lead to the creation of 20,000 new jobs and an additional £2.3 billion for the north’s economy by 2050.

The IPPR report can be found here: http://www.ippr.org/files/publications/pdf/who-will-power-the-powerhouse-feb2017.pdf?noredirect=1

KPMG and Northern Gas Networks’report ‘Energising the North’can be found by clicking here.