I wasn’t talking about right now, but in 6-8 years when hydrogen generation and fuel system is more mature.
More like 10-15 years.
The main use for hydrogen through to 2030 will be industrial; replacing natural gas with hydrogen in furnaces, for example. That hydrogen will be produced by gas reformation with carbon capture. And it will be expensive. It isn't until next decade that the UK government is forecasting significant hydrogen penetration in to other sectors. And even then, there are significant uncertainties.
For hydrogen to be a significant presence in our energy future, production needs to get cleaner and cheaper. Production methods like electrolysis and biomass gasification need to reach a point where they can be rolled out at scale. And while we're waiting on that happening, other technologies are developing which fulfill the same role as hydrogen. As a result, it's not even certain how much of a role hydrogen will play. Take domestic heating. The government's 2030 projection is 0-45TWh. This is because hydrogen could still be too expensive for domestic use by 2035, and because competing solutions like heat pumps have at least a decade of improvements ahead of them before the government can seriously consider piping hydrogen directly to millions of homes.
Time has been, and will remain, hydrogen's biggest problem. It could be our main means of storing an transporting energy in 30 years. Or it could be a specialist solution, used in only a few applications.
One thing that is telling; the UK's hydrogen strategy makes no allowance for hydrogen as a fuel source for passenger cars. So it seems like the UK government already thinks that ship has sailed.