What Natasha Bedingfield taught us about hydrogen data
Having admitted I enjoy a themed blog post, I was inevitably volunteered to share the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s progress with hydrogen data. At first, I tried to dream up a clever angle about technical demands, modern data science tools, or the complexity of the statistics we’re producing, but the harder I pushed, the clearer it became that none of that was the real challenge. The challenge was that we were building something entirely new – once that clicked, the theme revealed itself: Natasha Bedingfield, obviously.
As a government statistician, something genuinely new landing on your desk is rare. In the Energy Statistics team, this is especially pertinent as we enter our 80th year of publishing the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES). Thankfully, the UK’s energy transition stops us from getting too comfortable by sending plenty of challenges our way, the most recent being hydrogen. If like us last year your most recent memory of hydrogen is the periodic table in a GCSE textbook, here’s a refresher:
Hydrogen will play a crucial role in getting us to net zero. It is energy‑dense, versatile, and vital for decarbonising parts of heavy industry and power to complement a renewables-based energy system. However, until last year we had almost no data on it.
With a user need and an international reporting deadline looming, our first milestone was creating a new primary data collection. “Staring at the blank page before us” (well an empty Excel workbook, naturally) it became clear that success hinged on engagement. We needed to work out what data we actually needed – no small task given the complexities of hydrogen use in refining and chemical sectors – and we had to build relationships with a completely new group of data suppliers. Neither of those things were going to happen on a Teams call.
Getting out into the real world to meet suppliers and see industrial processes first‑hand shaped the collection and was a major factor in its success. We travelled across the country from Barry Island to Edinburgh, spending time with brilliantly patient engineers who walked us around huge pieces of kit while we asked the kind of questions that showed just how differently statisticians and engineers see the world. Trying to translate whirring metal, pipes and mystery valves into clean numbers brought its challenges but it transformed our understanding. Crucially, it meant we could bring genuine, first‑hand insight back to national and international forums.
In Energy Statistics, when it comes to methodology, we can usually reach for comforting classics like ‘International Recommendations for Energy Statistics’ or an International Energy Agency manual. This is not possible for hydrogen – “She’s undefined”. Breaking new ground and discovering new problems meant more engagement, this time with our international counterparts, who were grappling with the same issues. At best, these conversations let us swap solutions – at worst, shared problems were surprisingly reassuring. Ultimately, they led to the creation of an international taskforce which will consider the trickiest issues and develop guidance to improve comparability of hydrogen statistics between countries.
Once we had the data and a methodology, we faced the next challenge: publishing it. We produced a special article to release this new dataset, and it was genuinely daunting. Nothing like it had been published before, so we had nothing to benchmark against and no real sense of whether we’d got everything right, but publishing was essential. Sharing our first attempt opened the door to feedback, improvements, and importantly, the beginnings of a hydrogen energy balance. This brought engagement back home, working with trade associations to sense‑check potential headlines. Sometimes they reassured us, other times, their uncertainty was the final nudge we needed to “release our inhibitions”.
Hydrogen production and demand in the UK, 2022 to 2024 is now officially out there. For those who weren’t a Natasha Bedingfield fan in 2004 (and possibly for those who were, given my occasionally tenuous links), this is the moment I nudge you to listen back to Natasha Bedingfield’s greatest hit of that year. The song summarises my key takeaway far more succinctly than I ever could – don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress.
Publishing the article has allowed us to draw a line under the first phase of this work, to share what we’ve learned, and to move forward with momentum rather than hesitation. Now we turn to the next challenge, bringing the old and new together by incorporating hydrogen into DUKES, supported by the broad group of stakeholders who’ve shaped our journey so far.
When I open my next blank workbook, you can be sure Natasha will be playing in the background, because as she would say: “the rest is still unwritten”.
If you would like to provide feedback on the publication, please contact gas.stats@energysecurity.gov.uk
Zoe Clark, Head of Natural Gas and Hydrogen Statistics, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero