JCB signs green hydrogen deal worth billions

Construction equipment maker JCB has signed a deal to buy billions of pounds of green hydrogen, defined as hydrogen produced using renewable energy.

The deal means JCB will take 10% of the green hydrogen made by mining company Fortescue Future Industries (FFI).

Australian company FFI said the deal was a "first-of-a-kind partnership" that would see it become the UK's largest supplier of the clean fuel.

Production, mostly done outside the UK, is expected to begin early next year.

JCB and a firm called Ryze Hydrogen would then distribute it in the UK.

However, he has previously admitted that its production, and use, would have to rapidly increase for the government's ambitions to be achieved.

JCB, based in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, announced earlier this month that it was spending £100m on a project to produce "super efficient hydrogen engines".

Its chairman Lord Bamford said this deal would help to make green hydrogen a viable solution, telling the BBC it was "the right thing to do".

Lord Bamford called on the government to invest in hydrogen-fuelled forms of transport such as buses, trains and aircraft.