External daytime view of Cloth Hall Court with blue sky.

News.

Leeds welcomes the first National Hydrogen Summit to the city

A brand new conference was held Leeds in on the 27th and 28th of June, with the arrival of the inaugural National Hydrogen Summit at Cloth Hall Court and Leeds Civic Hall. The conference, which was the first of its kind, brought together 260 delegates from industry, academia and politics to develop a cohesive voice for hydrogen and create a committed policy to help reduce carbon emissions to ‘net zero’ by 2050, in line with government proposals.

The National Hydrogen Summit was organised by Leeds City Council in partnership with the University of Leeds and was opened by Councillor Judith Blake, who welcomed delegates and stakeholders to the city to discuss the decarbonisation of the UK’s energy systems.

The conference, which aims to become an annual event which will be hosted around the country, inspired conversation though a mixture of presentations, plenary sessions, workshops and keynote speeches delivered by Rachel Reeves MP; Jon Saltmarsh, the Head of Technical Energy Analysis at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ; Mark Horsley, Chief Executive of Northern Gas Networks; Tony Green, Head of Engineering & Asset Management at the National Grid and Professor Joe Howe, Executive Director of the Thornton Energy Institute.

Tom Knowland, Head of Sustainable Energy and Climate Change at Leeds City Council, said: “We were excited to host the first ever National Hydrogen Summit conference in Leeds this year as a homegrown event in partnership with the university. We were really pleased with the success of the event and we hope to continue to bring the summit to delegates across the UK over the coming years. We’re incredibly grateful that ConferenceLeeds were on hand to help organise the logistics of the summit and provided great support with the provision of delegate information and accommodation booking.”

Claire Heap, Head of ConferenceLeeds, commented: “We were thrilled to welcome the first ever National Hydrogen Summit to Leeds to kick start our busy summer conferencing season. Once again, this conference evidences the city’s dedication to tackle carbon emissions and help to decarbonise the UK energy sector, which in turn is helping the initiatives outlined in the Climate Change Act 2008 become more achievable. We were honoured to help the team at the National Hydrogen Summit to organise the conference, and we hope the event will return to the city soon!”