Hydrogen manufacturing investment will help write South Yorkshire’s next industrial chapter - Ed Miliband
For centuries, South Yorkshire has helped forge Britain’s industrial strength, from the steel used in our railways and bridges to the coal that powered the nation. Today we’re building on that proud heritage as we continue to write the region’s next industrial chapter with a major new investment in hydrogen manufacturing.
For too long communities in Yorkshire and across the country have been calling out for good jobs with strong trade unions that don't require young people to leave their hometowns. This government’s drive for clean, homegrown power that we control is helping to answer that call.
Alongside Great British Energy, our publicly owned energy company, we are delivering an expansion of ITM Power’s hydrogen factory in Sheffield. This has only happened thanks to years of intense collaboration between Great British Energy, the government and ITM Power.
It was years ago that Dennis and I met when Labour was still in opposition and talked about where ITM would build its next factory. I saw, then, Dennis’s commitment to South Yorkshire and it was one I thought the government needed to match.
What today shows is that clean energy can give people in our area a future of well paid, good jobs and by working together as part of a clear mission we can change our region and our country for the better.
This project will create 400 new skilled jobs in clean energy for the local community and hydrogen supply chain - delivering opportunities for electricians, engineers and welders as we drive to Britain’s clean energy future.
And it will help roll out hydrogen at scale across the country, unlocking investment and cementing South Yorkshire at the forefront of the technologies and the industries of the future, as home to one of Europe’s largest electrolyser factories.
With this announcement Great British Energy will become a stakeholder in the project, in its largest investment in clean homegrown power to date. This is our publicly owned company investing in British innovation, backing British firms, and ensuring the British people have a stake.
This is a government unapologetically delivering an industrial policy to ensure we make things and build things in this country again. A strategy that is driven by British workers, delivering real benefits to local communities. It means a young person in South Yorkshire can look to the future and see opportunity on their doorstep.
As we make this investment today, recent events in the Middle East have once demonstrated what it means to be at the mercy of volatile fossil fuel markets we do not control.
And while we are standing up for families right now – with the energy price cap falling by £117 at the start of this month thanks to the decisions we took at the Budget last year – we also have to learn the lessons of this crisis.
It is the latest reminder that the only way to bring bills down for good, and increase our energy security, is to go further and faster in building clean, homegrown power that we control.
Projects like this one in South Yorkshire show what that future looks like - delivering energy security, creating good skilled jobs for the next generation, and acting on the climate crisis to protect our children and grandchildren.
This region forged the first industrial age. Our government is putting it at the heart of the next.
Ed Miliband is the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.