--- title: Is Hydrogen Home Heating Good for Climate? No, Study Says description: Gas companies are promoting the fuel as a clean way to heat homes. But a new study says it doesn't make sense for the planet. canonical: https://time.com/6217426/is-hydrogen-heating-good-for-climate/ author: Alejandro de la Garza article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-09-27T18:33:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:49:11.792Z article:section: Climate og:title: Gas Companies Are Promoting Hydrogen to Heat Homes. But the Science Isn’t on Their Side og:description: It’s better to heat homes directly with green electricity than use renewable energy to produce hydrogen for home heating og:url: https://time.com/6217426/is-hydrogen-heating-good-for-climate/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7309a0a86698e895/698a35ef457a52848bd66db9/hydrogen-home-energy.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: NETHERLANDS-ENVIRONMENT-ENERGY og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Gas Companies Are Promoting Hydrogen to Heat Homes. But the Science Isn’t on Their Side twitter:description: It’s better to heat homes directly with green electricity than use renewable energy to produce hydrogen for home heating twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7309a0a86698e895/698a35ef457a52848bd66db9/hydrogen-home-energy.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Gas Companies Are Promoting Hydrogen to Heat Homes. But the Science Isn’t on Their Side > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Sep 27, 2022 6:33 PM UTC  An old central heating boiler (L) and a hydrogen boiler inside the Hydrogen Experience Centre in Apeldoorn on May 27, 2021\. The house serves as a training location for technicians, who can learn how residences can be powered by hydrogen. An old central heating boiler (L) and a hydrogen boiler inside the Hydrogen Experience Centre in Apeldoorn on May 27, 2021\. The house serves as a training location for technicians, who can learn how residences can be powered by hydrogen.Sem van der Wal/ANP/AFP—Getty Images  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Sep 27, 2022 6:33 PM UTC National Grid’s green energy plans look like a carbon-free utopia. In [an animation](https://www.nationalgrid.com/us/cop26/hydrogen-visionhttps://www.nationalgrid.com/us/cop26/hydrogen-vision) presented as part of the [Climate Week NYC](https://time.com/6216834/new-york-climate-week-greenwashing-corporate/) last week, the utility—which serves New York and Massachusetts—showed how wind farms off the shore of Long Island would be able to power facilities to produce hydrogen, which could then provide energy for ships, trucks, and aircraft, and back up regional electricity supply when the wind stops blowing. Plus, the hydrogen could heat buildings. Currently, much of the energy to heat homes comes from fossil fuels. Last year, homes in the U.S. sucked up more than [4 trillion cubic feet](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/use-of-natural-gas.php#:~:text=Also%20in%20Hydrogen%20explained&text=The%20United%20States%20used%20about,of%20U.S.%20total%20energy%20consumption.) of natural gas, producing about 250 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. Part of the solution, [according to gas distribution companies like National Grid](https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/heating-our-homes-hydrogen), is to use hydrogen produced from water and renewable energy to heat homes. It’s an idea not just being promoted in the U.S. but Europe as well, where the gas lobby is trying to boost hydrogen by [discrediting increasingly popular electric heat pumps](https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/even-the-european-gas-lobby-can-t-make-a-case-for-hydrogen-boilers-so-why-does-it-say-gases-are-needed-to-decarbonise-heating-/2-1-1120847?zephr%5Fsso%5Fott=8wGN09). But while such initiatives might make sense for gas companies, they might end up costing the public far more in the long run. It’s more efficient and affordable, say experts, to heat homes directly with green electricity rather than using renewable energy to produce hydrogen for home heating. Those were the conclusions of a [paper](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435122004160?dgcid=author) published today in _Joule_, which summarized the findings of 32 independent analyses on the topic. None of them concluded that widespread use of hydrogen for heating buildings was a good idea. That’s not to say hydrogen isn’t useful for the energy transition. It’s highly energy dense, making it good for decarbonizing so-called “hard to abate” sectors of the economy where weight and volume are important considerations, like shipping or aviation. It just doesn’t make sense for heating homes when far more efficient solutions already exist, like installing [electric heat pumps](https://time.com/6157947/heat-pumps-europe-russia/) or connecting buildings together with district heating systems, according to the study. Much of the reason for the disparity comes down to thermodynamics. You waste some energy when you use electricity to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen, which can then be used as fuel. And when you burn that hydrogen in a specially designed boiler, as some proponents argue we should, you lose more energy. Electric heat pumps, in comparison, can be about five times as efficient, according to the study, partially because of the fewer energy conversions required. Not only then is heating homes with hydrogen more expensive due to the extra electricity required to make it, but doing so means we have to build even more solar and wind farms to get the same decarbonization result, in effect moving the goalposts of the amount of renewable energy required to decarbonize the economy. That’s a big deal for anyone eager to see the world zero out its carbon emissions as soon as possible, a point made by the study author Jan Rosenow, director of European programs at the Regulatory Assistance Project, in almost deliberately staid terms. “The required build rate for renewables,” he wrote in the paper, “would be extremely challenging.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6217426/is-hydrogen-heating-good-for-climate/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6217426/is-hydrogen-heating-good-for-climate/"},"headline":"Gas Companies Are Promoting Hydrogen to Heat Homes. 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