Hydrogen Innovation Initiative welcomes Glass Futures as its newest partner

Glass Futures

The Hydrogen Innovation Initiative (HII) has announced Glass Futures as its latest partner, bringing a wealth of experience and expertise in the foundations industry to the programme.

Backed by Innovate UK, the Hydrogen Innovation Initiative is a consortium of industry, government, and academia creating an investible, globally competitive hydrogen technology and services sector in the UK. The partnership with Glass Futures will strengthen the range of expertise that HII brings to the hydrogen economy.

‘We are delighted to welcome Glass Futures as our newest strategic partner," said Dr Katy Milne, Programme Director for the Hydrogen Innovation Iniatitive. "Having served on our Industrial Advisory Board, they have been a key part of HII since its inception. Their focus on decarbonising energy-intensive industries aligns perfectly with our vision of UK technology powering the global hydrogen economy - transforming UK industry into a net zero powerhouse."

Glass Futures is revolutionising the removal of carbon from energy intensive industries. The research and technology, not-for-profit organisation connects the global glass industry with academia to demonstrate disruptive technologies that will decarbonise glass and foundation industries.

Over the last four years, Glass Futures, working collaboratively with its members and partners, has undertaken significant research into innovative solutions for decarbonising energy intensive industries.

"For us, this is an opportunity to collaborate closely with the other esteemed partners in this group, sharing learning, research and innovation across industries," said Rob Ireson, Innovation and Partnerships Manager at Glass Futures. "The work HII has done to help build robust and resilient hydrogen technology supply chains is incredibly relevant to our work in reducing carbon from the glass and foundations industries."

"Most ceramic kilns are fired using fossil fuels, collectively emitting 1.2Mt of CO2 per year, 60 per cent of which comes from the combustion of natural gas to heat kilns. As such hydrogen has the potential to reduce UK emissions by up to 780 kt CO2 per year. The glass and ceramic industries share common challenges when it comes to transitioning furnaces and kilns from natural gas to low-carbon hydrogen fuels. It makes sense for our two sectors to collaborate and pool resources and knowledge to develop solutions to these challenges."

The Hydrogen Innovation Initiative launched it's latest report, the UK Hydrogen Innovation Opportunity, alongside four supporting reports on April 24th. The report will cover the size and scale of the opportunity for the UK in the global hydrogen technology market. Extensive analysis and engagement with over 250 organisations, 12 industry associations and the HII Industrial Advisory board has fed into this report.

About HII

HII is a trusted group of organisations bringing together industry, government, and academia to create an investible, globally competitive hydrogen technology and services sector, here in the UK. Our vision is for UK technology powering the global hydrogen economy - transforming UK industry into a net zero powerhouse.

We are supporting UK companies in bringing innovative products and services to market that will be an integral part of the fast-growing global hydrogen economy.

Working together, we can future-proof the UK's domestic hydrogen supply chains by helping improve export prospects and upskilling the workforce, allowing UK businesses to compete in the global hydrogen economy.

Our partners are world-leading technology centres and Catapults, working alongside government and industry. Our partners include: Advanced Propulsion Centre UK, Aerospace Technology Institute, Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult, Connected Places Catapult, Digital Catapult, Energy Systems Catapult, Glass Futures, High Value Manufacturing Catapult, National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Net Zero Technology Centre, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, Satellite Applications Catapult.