GeoPura and Forth Ports announced a landmark agreement in late March 2026 to produce green hydrogen at the Port of Tilbury, intended to support decarbonisation of one of the UK's major logistics hubs. It's one of a growing number of projects converting the UK's hydrogen strategy from policy document into physical infrastructure — alongside a hydrogen refuelling corridor along the M4 between London and Bristol, where Fuel Cell Systems is delivering the infrastructure behind a government-funded scheme intended to put 30 hydrogen HGVs on the road by summer 2026.
On production capacity, the next Hydrogen Allocation Round (HAR3) is due to launch during 2026, with HAR3 and a subsequent HAR4 together targeting around 1.5 GW of low-carbon hydrogen production — building on the roughly 1 GW already allocated through the first two rounds. The government has also confirmed an upcoming review specifically into the use of hydrogen in primary steel production, a hard-to-decarbonise process that sits alongside the broader UK Steel Strategy's electric arc furnace transition as a parallel route to lower-carbon steelmaking.
Not every part of the strategy has moved at the same pace. The long-trailed decision on whether hydrogen will play a role in domestic home heating — originally expected in 2026 — has been pushed back under ongoing review, reflecting continued debate over the relative efficiency of hydrogen heating compared with electrification. Industrial and transport applications, by contrast, have attracted clearer government commitment, with new safety and performance standards (PAS 4445) now in development specifically for hydrogen-fired equipment.
For engineers working in process design, the near-term relevance sits in industrial and heavy transport applications rather than domestic heating, where the policy picture remains unsettled. Hydrogen-compatible piping, valves and pressure equipment for industrial users — chemicals, refineries, glass, ceramics and now potentially primary steelmaking — represent the more immediate design opportunity, and the emerging PAS 4445 standard is worth tracking for anyone specifying hydrogen-fired process equipment over the next few years.