JCB signs green hydrogen deal worth billionson October 31, 2021 at 3:50 am

Construction equipment maker JCB has signed a deal to buy billions of pounds of green hydrogen, defined as hydrogen produced using renewable energy.

The deal means JCB will take 10% of the green hydrogen made by mining company Fortescue Future Industries (FFI).

Australian company FFI said the deal was a “first-of-a-kind partnership” that would see it become the UK’s largest supplier of the clean fuel.

Production, mostly done outside the UK, is expected to begin early next year.

JCB and a firm called Ryze Hydrogen would then distribute it in the UK.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has said low carbon hydrogen has a critical role to play in the UK’s transition to net zero – that is balancing the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere.

JCB, based in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, announced earlier this month that it was spending £100m on a project to produce “super efficient hydrogen engines”.

Its chairman Lord Bamford said this deal would help to make green hydrogen a viable solution, telling the BBC it was “the right thing to do”.

Lord Bamford called on the government to invest in hydrogen-fuelled forms of transport such as buses, trains and aircraft.