Forward speaks to Michaela Kendall, the UK Hydrogen Champion about Hydrogen's industry growth - from hydrogen powered rail to combustion boats – alongside its challenges, and the future of hydrogen energy.
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Hydrogen is a fuel with the potential to transform rail, maritime, automotive and umpteen other sectors. So how is it progressing? Hydrogen figurehead Michaela Kendall talks to Mewburn Ellis through the state of the industry.
In theory, it’s terrible timing to talk to Michaela Kendall, the UK Hydrogen Champion. The week before had been a bitter one for the industry. Following a run of bad news for hydrogen in Britain – projects axed, production costs up – The Times ran a grim editorial asking: ‘What’s gone wrong with the UK’s hydrogen ambitions?’ The goal of 10 gigawatts of clean hydrogen production by 2030 is, said Clare Jackson, chief executive of Hydrogen UK, ‘undeliverable’.
Kendall begins our interview by demolishing the negativity.
‘This is a global game!’ she says. ‘The international mood in the hydrogen world is extremely buoyant. And I’ve got the numbers to back that up.’
Of course she does. Kendall is the irrepressible voice of the British hydrogen industry. It’s in her blood. Her father, Kevin Kendall, was a pioneer in hydrogen fuel cells and founded the family firm Adelan in 1996, which continues to develop hydrogen technologies. Today, Michaela is the CEO of Adelan and a force of nature in the hydrogen world.
Her figures? ‘My favourite number is $1.5 trillion,’ says Kendall, ‘which is the amount of hydrogen projects which have been publicly announced. That’s tracked by the Energy Industries Council. It’s up from $1tn in March 2025. In May the year before, the figure was only $340bn. So the hydrogen industry is growing at $100bn a month. Compound annual growth for hydrogen technology is 60% a year, compared with single digits for nuclear.’
There are, she points out, major projects appearing worldwide, particularly in Germany, South Korea, Japan, the west coast of California and, of course, China. ‘More than 100 countries have a national hydrogen plan,’ she says. ‘The UK wrote its first in 2021, so that’s the speed at which we’re progressing.’
She commiserates with The Times journalist for being duped by a minor setback. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to see this growth unless you’re inside the industry.’
How the Hydrogen Champion sees hydrogen
So what lessons does an insider like Kendall have for newcomers to hydrogen?
Her advice is to understand the diversity of the industry. ‘When I talk about the hydrogen economy, I say it’s more than hydrogen the gas,’ she explains, ‘It’s the wider ecosystem of technologies. Look at solar – it’s as much about batteries and transmission. So the narrative in the UK is wrong to focus on hydrogen fuel. That’s not what hydrogen is all about.’
The hydrogen universe includes conversion devices, such as fuel cells, turbines and burners. There’s storage hardware including compression, liquefaction and container units. The end uses vary from power to mobility and plain old industrial consumption, including the production of fertilisers for agriculture. The line between hydrogen and so-called competitor fuels is blurry too: solid oxide fuel cells can operate on a suite of fuels including bioLPG, LNG and hydrogen.
The hydrogen industry is expanding into new domains, such as hydrogen-powered drones and secondary power for recreational vehicles. And no discussion of hydrogen is complete without mentioning the attractive sibling fuel, ammonia, or NH3. Ammonia also offers carbon-free energy at point of combustion, but it’s easier to transport as it liquefies at minus 33°C or under modest pressure, offers higher energy density, is safer to handle, being not highly flammable, and can be detected by smell.
Kendall stresses she loves the whole gamut of tech, including the hybrid stuff that overlaps with traditional fuels. She may be the Hydrogen Champion, but she’s not a purist.
‘We’re not going to switch over to hydrogen pipes tomorrow,’ she warns. ‘Who can afford that? In a market economy you’ll get a variety of solutions. Look at a filling station forecourt and the range of fuels on the pumps. That’s natural – and what we expect in the long term. A challenge I see with the electric vehicle industry is it sees a single energy source as the solution. That’s not what you expect in a market economy.’
The growth sectors
Kendall sees hydrogen progressing niche by niche. Industrial applications demonstrate this.
‘I see a big opportunity with hydrogen-powered rail and freight, especially in remote locations,’ she says. ‘Decarbonising rail is currently very difficult. Remote lines tend to run on diesel. In remote settings there’s a great fit for hydrogen or ammonia power, working as a hybridised system alongside renewables and batteries. There are so many possibilities. You can have a solid oxide fuel cell or PEM [proton-exchange membrane] fuel cell for propulsion. Then there’s auxiliary power, which provides the heat and power for the rail passengers. In stations where you might want to turn off the main engine, or in emergency situations, you want auxiliary power, which is a perfect job for fuel cells. In areas where electrification is too expensive, hydrogen technologies can power the trains.’
Progress is being made. The UK’s first hydrogen-powered train is being developed by the University of Birmingham and Fuel Cell Systems. The prototype fits a hydrogen powerpack to a Class 319 train, which can run on normal electrified rail tracks as well as independently.
The marine industry could be huge.
‘There are so many shipping applications,’ she says. ‘Friends of ours just demonstrated a hydrogen combustion boat in the UK last year. We see the integration of fuel cells into ships, both ferries and larger vessels. And we’re looking at leisure boats, which need a fuel cell in a backup role.’
Anywhere where fossil fuels are absent or impractical is a prime candidate for hydrogen.
‘Remote places such as holiday villages are another obvious application,’ says Kendall. ‘If you have a holiday park in a beautiful location you don’t want electrical power lines coming in. What you need is a remote generator to support individual or distributed holiday cottages. Hydrogen fuel cells and generators would work well. Solid oxide fuel cells can also be reversible, so they generate hydrogen in one mode, using renewable energy as a power source, and then use that hydrogen to produce power in another mode.’
This can be seen at Rudge Farm Cottages in Dorset. Thirty solar panels produce hydrogen on site using electrolysis. The hydrogen is stored in repurposed LNG barrels. From there it powers boilers with zero local emissions. The owners boast: ‘the entire heating process, from power generation to heat delivery, will operate independently of the grid, powered entirely by the sun and hydrogen’. It’s cheaper than grid power in the long term and adds to the charm of the rustic cottages for rent.
And then there’s the automotive sector.
It’s more than two decades since President George W Bush launched his hydrogen fuel initiative in his 2003 State of the Union address, promising children born that year would be cruising around in pollution-free cars.
‘I drive a Toyota Mirai which runs on hydrogen,’ says Kendall proudly. ‘“Mirai” means “future” in Japanese. My dad drives a hydrogen car as well. Hydrogen cars are fantastic, and I can say that because I’ve driven one for years.’ The Mirai does 0–60mph in nine seconds, with 182 horsepower, and runs on a silent electric motor powered by a hydrogen and oxygen fuel cell. At £64,695 new it’s comparable to a top-spec Tesla Model Y.
‘Toyota is the only car company I know of that understates the range. I drove one with a stated range of 270 miles. I leased them to other enthusiasts and one guy said he got 408 miles on a single tank, which at £50 at the time made it cheaper than petrol and diesel.’ She adds a caveat: ‘The price of hydrogen has gone up since then due to electricity being more expensive.’
Hydrogen cars need very little servicing, she points out: ‘There was a London taxi firm called Green Tomato Cars that trialled hydrogen vehicles, which covered three million miles collectively within the fleet and had required no maintenance. The technology for cars is very, very good. And there’s no pollution.’
Refuelling is easy. ‘It takes five minutes at the pump,’ she confirms. ‘The difference is when you put the nozzle into the tank it seals. One quirk I like to mention is that hydrogen cars clean the air as you drive. They have an air intake with a filter. So you’re cleaning the air as you move around. The challenge is the infrastructure. We’re actually going backwards.’
Here’s the difficult bit. Kendall doesn’t shy away from the challenges facing the industry.
‘In 2021 there were 17 hydrogen filling stations in Britain. Now there are four. And that’s on a good day. Toyota, Hyundai and Honda are frustrated. Their customers have bought hydrogen cars and there’s no infrastructure. They have models for sale right now, but where are customers supposed to fill the tank? This is a basic problem. The infrastructure.’
She’s scathing about the lack of political leadership in the UK and beyond. ‘There’s no concerted effort. The government isn’t structuring policy in a way that encourages people to do what’s profitable and environmentally beneficial.’
It’s a blunt message. ‘I’m very direct,’ she admits. ‘Scientists tend to be pretty direct. But, yeah, I also noticed that’s maybe why I’m not getting called back.’
Next up
Kendall is not one to wait for politicians. In 2017 she took the initiative and co-wrote a national strategy for the UK. ‘We realised no one else was going to do it, so we produced it ourselves,’ she recalls. ‘It was the only time the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy actually visited my office! I sent them a copy and they visited Birmingham.’
In 2021 the Department for Business followed her lead and published a national hydrogen strategy. ‘Which was interesting and sensible, but not very ambitious,’ says Kendall. ‘The goal was 5 gigawatts for production by 2030. Within six months they doubled the target. This was ridiculous. If you’ve got to double your target within six months of publishing you’ve got an issue.’
Today she promotes Hydrogen England, which has an interesting origin story. ‘It was the Midlands Hydrogen Fuel Cell Network. We renamed it Hydrogen England, because there’s Hydrogen Scotland, so it made sense.’ The body represents hydrogen suppliers, so complements, rather than competes with the Hydrogen Energy Association.
Kendall’s view is that this is an industry with huge potential but craving support from politicians. Fortunately, the super-rich seem to pay attention. ‘Jim Ratcliffe, owner of INEOS, is interested – as you’d expect since he makes it.’ He calls hydrogen the fuel of the future. ‘I heard James Dyson installed a fuel cell into a treehouse. And Bill Gates’ superyacht is powered by hydrogen.’ The $645m yacht, aptly named Breakthrough, was the first superyacht to use hydrogen – showcasing what can be achieved.
The constructor of Gates’ yacht, Feadship, publicly mentioned during the vessel’s launch that it needed to script the regulations itself, in the absence of rules: ‘Although there are hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars, and fuel cells have been used as the primary source of electrical power on human spaceflight for more than six decades, nothing existed in the maritime sector. There were no regulations for hydrogen storage and fuel-cell systems at class, flag-state or even the International Maritime Organisation level.’ This highlights how a lack of oversight holds the industry back.
What’s clear is that Kendall is eager to see hydrogen get back on track as the default alternative to fossil fuels. To move from demonstration units and narrow deployment to mass everyday adoption.
‘Hydrogen solves the intermittency of renewables,’ she states. ‘I was up in Edinburgh yesterday and half the wind turbines were switched off. I like to point out that we don’t have an energy crisis, we have an energy-management crisis. Hydrogen is going to be a major part of solving that.’
Merely using solar and wind to generate hydrogen with electrolysis makes commercial and practical sense. ‘It’s perfectly logical!’ she says. ‘I’m surprised we don’t see more of it, honestly.’
Kendall was awarded her title of UK Hydrogen Champion in 2020 by the UK chief scientific adviser and shows no sign of abdicating her role.
‘I see hydrogen as a unifier,’ she concludes. ‘It may mean different things to different people, but in the end we all want a better environment.’
Mathew Smith, Partner and Patent Attorney, at Mewburn Ellis comments:
“Hearing the perspective of someone as well regarded as Dr Kendall is an exciting reminder of just how fast moving and international the hydrogen landscape has become (ever more so as it continues to grow!). Her combination of deep technical experience and commercial realism offers a rare, joined up view of where the sector is heading. Coupled with her infectious enthusiasm for the topic, I’m left optimistic and keen to see where the big hydrogen projects already underway can take us."
Written by Charles Orton-Jones.
