A POWYS renewables firm has been awarded funding for a pioneering renewable energy project that could see a new industry bloom in Wales.

Dulas, in Machynlleth, has been awarded funding by the Welsh Government to finance a project that will look at the feasibility of hydrogen production in Wales using renewable energy sources.

The project, called HyFEAS, will include examining the available technologies and addressing the technical and commercial feasibility of hydrogen production at Wales’ water Llyn Celyn hydro power plant and at a wind farm.

The project is expected to take four months and Dulas hopes to use the results to progress to a design and planning stage for the system.

Hydrogen is expected to be a major component of renewable energies in the future and demand for it is anticipated to rise dramatically.

As the demand for hydrogen increases, the need to produce it through environmentally friendly means as opposed to fossil fuels becomes all the more vital.

Further research is needed to scale up the technologies and bring down costs in order to make hydrogen more widely accessible.

Andy Skipton Carter, commercial lead for consulting at Dulas, said: “Research into green hydrogen production and defining affordable, sustainable systems that will work with renewable energy locally and at scale is ground-breaking stuff and we are excited to have started on this project.

“We’ll be building on our existing skills and learning new ones so that we can continue to offer our clients pioneering, effective renewable solutions that will help combat climate change and support local energy security.”

Hydrogen can be compressed, transported and stored for later use, making it extremely useful as source of energy.

The Welsh Government also hopes that if hydrogen was more widely available in Wales, it would attract more industries hoping to lower their emissions which would lead to more jobs and investment to the area.

A spokesman for Dulas added: “Realising the potential of hydrogen could be an exciting and transformative opportunity for Wales.”