Written evidence submitted by Mineral Products Association Scotland (HCC0024)

About MPA Scotland

The Mineral Products Association Scotland (MPAS) is the trade association for the aggregates, asphalt, cement, concrete, dimension stone, lime, mortar and silica sand industries. MPAS Membership is made up of independent SME quarrying companies as well as major international and global companies. MPAS members provide 100% of cement production in Scotland, 90% of aggregates production, 95% of asphalt and over 70% of ready-mixed concrete production and precast concrete production.

What infrastructure, and investment in infrastructure, is needed for green hydrogen to be easily available for heavy transport and buses across the whole of Scotland?

MPA’s responses to previous inquiries and consultations on transport decarbonisation have set out our members’ willingness and enthusiasm for decarbonising their road fleets, with two key requirements to enable them to do so. Firstly, manufacturers must bring to market zero-emission vehicles capable of doing the job required in terms of power, torque, range, weight and cost. Secondly, and the focus of this inquiry, the infrastructure to enable them to be fuelled efficiently must be in place. This is the case whatever the technology in place: electric, hydrogen or some other options such as biogas. A key subsidiary requirement to this is the availability of fuel at an appropriate price.

Hydrogen is likely to be fairly scarce, at least in the early phases of its deployment. Priority should be given to uses that cannot be electrified rather than those that can such as buses or home heating. Electric buses are operating today and other than very rural services where electric charging may be an issue, there seems littler reason to opt for hydrogen models. Given Scotland’s abundant renewable resources, it is not unimaginable that electric charging could be easier to deliver in remote locations than hydrogen.

Today, haulage operators can reliably fuel their HGVs at a well-established, widespread network of filling stations that cover the whole country. Replicating this reliability of refuelling is essential to support businesses to transition to zero-emission HGVs, removing a potential barrier or concern.

Assuming the transition is to hydrogen, it will require either a similar coverage of filling stations to today’s diesel network or on-site generation, both of which seem challenging. With cars and light goods vehicles likely to be predominantly electric-powered, the economics of ensuring this network may differ significantly from the previous generation, and of course the same universal geographical coverage would not need as many stations. However, given the wholesale reliance of the economy on HGVs, it is essential that the whole country is covered by adequate and accessible fuel supplies. For remote parts of Scotland, this may be particularly challenging but the alternative of excluding parts of the country is not acceptable. Given Scotland’s ample renewable electricity generation sources and the possibility to electrolyse hydrogen anywhere, this should not be insoluble.

For operators of quarries, there will be an additional challenge of fuel supply to sites for equipment. While separate to transport, the same network and supply issues will need to be tackled to ensure the whole economy can transition to net zero fuels. Quarry equipment has a long life-cycle, and switching from diesel will be a significant undertaking, with significant health and safety implications.

Hydrogen is very likely to have a key role to play on rail, especially for heavy freight services. Electrification is possible but has significant infrastructure costs and is unlikely to be a total solution. Branch lines, including private sections of railway to quarry or plant railheads that would be uneconomic to electrify could use other options including hydrogen, but also battery power, biogas or synthetic fuels. MPA members are currently using Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) on rail, for example.

The role for the Scottish Government should be to try to ensure that whichever technology eventually wins out, the infrastructure is in place to enable businesses to seamlessly transfer their fleets over time. This is critically important and a major concern in more remote areas of the country, where our industry is well-represented and can be a major employer. This may be especially challenging if heavy and specialist vehicles need a hydrogen solution but cars and vans go electric because the market for fuel supply would be split. Regulation and standards may well play an important role in ensuring adequate coverage of all areas. Failing to ensure that more remote areas are well served by a hydrogen fuelling network would have a significant impact on some businesses, and their local economies and must be avoided.

March 2022