This article appears as part of the Winds of Change newsletter

A few years ago, it seemed uncertain which way we were going in the effort to get off burning natural gas. There were various potential clean options: air-source heat pumps, ground-source, district heating networks, energy from waste, hydrogen.

But it was hard to know whether, even if you could afford it, you should get your home heat-pump ready, or just wait for the hydrogen to come down the same old pipes as the gas. Just do nothing, for most, was the answer. Do nothing until the answers seem clear and affordable.

But over recent years there have been at least the beginnings of some direction and consensus, with the heat pump an outright winner over the hydrogen boiler. In its latest carbon budget the UK Climate Change Committee even stated that it sees “no role for hydrogen in building heating and only a very niche, if any, role in surface transport”

Given all this, First Minister John Swinney’s declaration, on his visit to H100, the Fife project that is set to deliver Scotland’s first homes heated by 100% hydrogen, that they are a “shining example”, seems both baffling and like a hark back to old messaging.

“I'm very keen on the opportunities through hydrogen,” he said in a Scotsman interview. “ I thought the project in Fife was absolutely fascinating. The visualisation of the generation of renewable energy from a turbine right on the shore, the conversion to hydrogen through an electrolyser, the storage capacity and the network of properties is a really exciting opportunity for us and it gives us a new prospect, not just for heat in buildings, but for other hydrogen uses.”

The First Minister, the article said, “has signalled that the new heat in buildings plans could carve out a role for hydrogen-ready boilers, as an alternative to heat pumps”. Has he missed the past few years of Net Zero debate? Or neglected to read the memo about hydrogen costs?

Or does he think the heat pump pathway is now so firmly mapped out, with a Heat in Buildings Bill on the way and local authority heat network........

© Herald Scotland