Ask a glassmaker or a steel producer what keeps them up at night and the furnace, and what fuels it, will be near the top of the list. Glass melts at 1,400 to 1,600°C, and some specialist furnaces run hotter still, mostly on natural gas bought on a volatile global market. For high-heat industries, that exposure to price swings and supply shocks is as pressing as the emissions: they need fuel that is secure and predictable as well as low carbon. Here’s where green hydrogen genuinely helps with industrial heat security, and where the harder questions, not least cost, still sit.
1. Why High-Heat Industry Can’t Simply Electrify Its Way to Security
Heating of all kinds, from homes and hot water to industry, accounts for around 37% of UK carbon emissions (Durham Energy Institute) with industrial heat alone making up around 14% (Royal Society, via IET). Some of that is low-grade heat, but a meaningful share isn’t. That share includes steel reheating furnaces and glass tanks running at temperatures most low-carbon heat technologies can’t reach, on a fuel whose price the manufacturer doesn’t control. Industrial heat pumps work well up to around 160°C, rising towards 200°C this decade (EHPA).
That’s useful for a lot of UK manufacturing, but far short of what it takes to melt glass or fire ceramics. Direct electric heating can work for some processes, but for large furnaces that run around the clock it often means major grid upgrades and costly furnace rebuilds. That’s the gap green hydrogen fills: a fuel that burns hot enough for the most demanding processes, backed by a UK supply chain a manufacturer can plan around, without the CO2 of burning natural gas.
2. How Hydrogen Combustion Works at These Temperatures
Hydrogen burns hotter than natural gas and produces water vapour instead of CO2, although the higher flame temperature can raise NOx, which has to be managed through burner design. For most high-heat sites, switching doesn’t mean replacing the furnace; it means re-engineering how it is fired. Burners and controls must change because hydrogen behaves differently in the flame. It is flammable across a far wider range of concentrations in air than methane (roughly 4 to 75%, against around 5 to 15%), and it ignites far more easily, so gas detection, ventilation and safety procedures need to be redesigned too (Therser UK).
The ceramics sector shows this is already happening. Wienerberger is converting its Denton brickworks in Greater Manchester to run entirely on green hydrogen, keeping the existing kiln structures but replacing the burners, control systems and supply infrastructure, with full operation targeted from 2028 (Building Design). In the end, what decides whether a switch works isn’t the combustion chemistry. It’s whether supply, storage and safety are designed around it properly.
3. What This Looks Like in Practice at Protium
What we have is proof that production, supply and engineering work at industrial scale, right now. We are developing large-scale green hydrogen projects designed to supply continuous industrial heat. Our track record includes securing planning approval in March 2024 for a hydrogen production facility at Budweiser Brewing Group’s Samlesbury brewery, where the hydrogen will fuel the brewery’s boilers (gasworld), and having two projects, Magor Net Zero and South Tees Net Zero, shortlisted in the UK Government’s second Hydrogen Allocation Round, HAR2 (Protium). We have also acquired the Cromarty green hydrogen project, which was selected for government support in the first round (gasworld). Applying this experience to high-temperature glass furnaces addresses the same operational priority: a continuous, plannable fuel supply that is less exposed to natural gas price volatility.
Underpinning it all is production: our Pioneer 2 facility in Baglan, South Wales, officially opened in June 2026, runs a 2.5MWe PEM electrolyser that can produce up to a tonne of green hydrogen a day at over 99.99% purity (gasworld; Protium). We have also bought into an operational green hydrogen plant in Dorset, adding to supply across our network. At Panasonic’s Cardiff factory, our technical services team designed and commissioned tube trailer bays, high-pressure pipework and a pressure let-down station to run 21 hydrogen fuel cells alongside solar and battery storage (Protium). That is the same discipline a furnace conversion demands: getting hydrogen safely from trailer to point of use.
4. What to Plan for Before Switching a Furnace, Kiln or Boiler
Every conversation starts with the same questions, and honest early answers separate projects that get built from ones that stall in feasibility.
Temperature and continuity: a batch process at 300°C needs a different supply setup to a glass tank running continuously at 1,500°C.
Supply and storage: continuous furnaces need a high-volume supply chain sized to production, with enough on-site storage to smooth delivery gaps.
Equipment compatibility: some burners are hydrogen-ready or accept a blend; others need retrofitting, depending on their design and age.
Safety engineering: hydrogen’s wider flammability range and lower ignition energy mean gas detection, ventilation and burner control all need re-specifying.
Funding: green hydrogen still costs more than the natural gas it replaces. The Hydrogen Allocation Rounds work like a Contract for Difference, bridging that gap with government-backed revenue support over 15 years. The first round backed 11 projects totalling 124MW; the second shortlisted 27, including two of ours, across roughly 765MW (Renewables Now; IEA), with successful projects yet to be announced. Structuring a project around that support, as we are doing with Magor and South Tees, can turn a good engineering case into a bankable one.
5. Where Hydrogen Fits Best, and Where the Harder Questions Remain
Green hydrogen makes the strongest case for processes that run hot and continuously enough that electrification isn’t a near-term option: glass melting, steel reheating, and continuous high-temperature ceramics and ferrous processing. For lower-temperature heat, up to the 160 to 200°C heat pumps can reach, electrification may well be the cheaper answer, and we’d say so rather than push hydrogen where it doesn’t fit.
Full-scale UK furnaces running on 100% green hydrogen are still at an early stage. What exists is real production capacity, proven supply logistics, and government-shortlisted projects like Magor and South Tees designed to build the model at industrial scale. That’s the gap we’re closing project by project. Industrial heat won’t be secured, or decarbonised, by a single technology. But for the hardest-to-abate processes, green hydrogen offers one of the few credible routes to a fuel supply a manufacturer can plan around, with a cost gap that government support is designed to close.
Contact our Team
If you manage a construction site, an industrial facility, or a temporary power need and want to know what a hydrogen switch would actually involve, from load sizing to delivery logistics, tell us about your site and we’ll give you a straight answer on what’s possible. Get in touch.
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