Hydrogen will be tested as an additive to Natural Gas Supply lines in the UK. While Making Hydrogen gas from Electrolysis is the Prefered Method, There is a push to use Steam Methane Reformation, with CO2 from the Process, Buried Underground.

Hydrogen for heat 'will create anchor carbon capture and storage projects' | theenergyst.com

A consortium led by gas networks aims to work out whether using more hydrogen within existing infrastructure could cut UK carbon emissions. Cadent and Northern Gas Networks believe it could also lay the ground for renewed efforts to crack carbon capture and storage.

From article, (A consortium led by gas networks aims to work out whether using more hydrogen within existing infrastructure could cut UK carbon emissions.

 It aims to inject a gas blend of up to 20% hydrogen across Keele University’s private gas network next year in a bid to work out how much hydrogen could be safely used within existing infrastructure without affecting gas appliances.

Keele’s campus was chosen because, with 12,000 students and staff and 350 mixed-use buildings, it arguably has a profile not too dissimilar to a small town.

Results from Keele could therefore provide a platform for a wider public trial.

Using hydrogen, or other ‘green’ gases within existing gas networks is one of the pathways industry and government are considering in a bid to decarbonise heat.

Another pathway is electrificiation, which proponents argue may be a cleaner approach.

Electrification arguments hinge on the fact that creating clean hydrogen at scale would require carbon capture and storage, a technology not yet proven at commercial scale.

Counter arguments revolve around peak loads electrification of heat would create, and how these could be managed in a system with high penetration of intermittent renewables, and where consumers display little appetite to change consumption patterns.

Under the HyDeploy trial, hydrogen will be created via electrolysis, which breaks up water molecules into electricity and oxygen.

For large-scale operations, it is likely that steam methane reformation (SMR) methods of production would be required. Making SMR hydrogen ‘clean’ would require carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Mark Horsley, CEO of Northern Gas Networks, told The Energyst the firm “makes no bones” about the fact large scale deployment of hydrogen within gas networks would require CCS.

However, he said if hydrogen can safely be proven for use at significant concentrations within gas networks, such a requirement would help create “anchor projects for people wanting to build carbon capture networks” and make them “more viable”.

Using higher blends of hydrogen in the gas network will require plastic pipes. The UK-wide iron ring main replacement programme is now about 70% complete, according to Horsley, and will be 100% complete by 2032, potentially creating strong alignment for higher hydrogen use in the next decade.

While gas appliances manufactured after 1996 are designed to operate with a hydrogen mix up to 23%, the government is funding a £25m project to determine implications of higher hydrogen blends for gas-fired equipment such as cookers and boilers. Manufacturers such as Worcester Bosch have already started designing boilers to handle higher hydrogen mixes.

“We are very confident about the technology – hydrogen production is a known technology – but there is potential to use the pipe network for other bio- or synthetic gases. So we think the project has a real merit, but, at the same time, we are not precluding other solutions.”)

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