This Fuel Cell gas analyser Sensor (FCS) digitalisation project is a key digital enabler for the gas networks' drive towards net zero and decarbonisation. The net zero programme of work needs to find cheap / accurate, digitally agile sensors for gas quality control analysis, the protection of assets and the provision of accurate calorific values (CVs) for customer billing. Current sensors (e.g gas chromatographs) are considered too expensive and too slow to undertake the work required given the numbers of units potentially required. Net zero gas generation is likely to be highly distributed throughout the network and from numerous localised generation points. The fully integrated FCS system will be connected via the Internet of Things (IoT) directly into the transmission and distribution businesses and their quality control systems and respective billing systems to accurately report on calorific values, Wobbe index information and relative gas densities.
Provision of the monitoring data / information to the IOT will allow better control, transparency and monitoring of gas network data as well as providing customers with accurate local CV's through their smart metering systems.
The Des19ncor and Loughborough University team, have circa 20 skilled engineers and scientists available to work on this project and are best placed to advice on this digitisation discovery project.
Users of the innovation will include.
- Transmission and Distribution gas networks e.g. National Grid and Cadent
- Hydrogen and Bio-methane producers.
- Regulators e.g. OFGEM, HSE etc.
- Customers e.g industrial and domestic.
- Future hydrogen grid testing.
The introduction of blended hydrogen and full hydrogen into the gas networks will require a higher level of real-time quality and CV controls than currently exist in the networks today. Current systems which mainly rely on 30 year old technology, i.e. gas chromatographs, are slow to report (i.e. ranging from 4 mins to 12 mins) and have old software for reporting which will not be sufficient moving forward.
Network users will need the following to control the network adequately as they move forward to facilitate Net Zero.
- Accurate contact gas sensors which are sufficiently inexpensive to place c 00,000's into the network.
- To connect these sensors through the IOT to digital control and reporting systems.
- Local calculation of CV's at governor sites for accurate customer billing and the ability to connect sensor results to smart metering systems.
- Digital systems connected to sensors to report on embrittlement, permeability and vibration.
VIDEO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGo15qU_KK8&list=PLrMOhOrmeR6ktSag0RbT7zPNVn0p1P2f6&index=24
Problem Bring Solved
The gas industry worldwide has no sensing devices that are Internet of Things (IoT) networked and can economically measure mixed natural gas, bio-fuels and hydrogen gases in a highly distributed format, to provide the quality control and calorific values (CV), sufficient to protect assets and drive billing. A Fuel Cell gas analyser Sensors (FCS) is being developed to measure all these gases cost effectively in near real-time to provide quality control (i.e. Wobbe Index / relative density) and accurate CV's and potentially ISO 6976 calculations. This will move the industry away from a relatively low number of chromatography sample points and the use of weighted CV averages for billing purposes to accurate CV's based on point of use data available via IOT sensors.
FCS could potentially be much cheaper to buy, install and operate over the whole life cycle - up to 20 times cheaper than current technology with readings delivered near real-time data rather than the existing 'fast' 4 minutes. The current gas network has relatively few gas injection points and deploys expensive large scale measurement devices at these points. It then uses a weighted average to deduce a combined calorific value for charging purposes. Net zero gas production could result in 00,000's of locations where hydrogen and bio-gases are being created and measurement is needed. This diverse gas injection environment will create a similar demand for gas sensor units in the UK alone and perhaps 50 times as many worldwide.
FCS uses open software, has a proven technology and has recently passed its proof of concept with Innovate UK but now needs to be assessed for distributed use on the gas network. If successful the opportunities are as follows.
- Accelerate the move to Net Zero by acting as an enabler for blended H2 and bio-gas controls.
- Bring a benefit to energy customers by reducing operating costs.
- Through large and immediate data acquisition facilitate predictive asset management controls for such things as embrittlement, permeability and gas quality controls.
- Deployment of the FCS at step down governor sites could see the end of weighted average CV's for fiscal billing and enable point of delivery CV's to the customer (e.g. connecting the FCS near real-time data up to smart gas meters).
- For large industrial users the FCS could be deployed locally to assist with transition de-blending and production control.
Impacts and benefits
Potential Net Benefits:
Lead indicators and benefits for the project, identified and confirmed by this project, include
but are not limited to the following.
• Customers’ access to local calorific values (CVs) rather than assumed weighted
averages. This could impact on the fairness in billing and therefore fuel poverty (e.g.,
some customers pay higher CVs than the CV of the gas received).
• Blended hydrogen metering will be enabled. Current analysers will not economically
support blended hydrogen meter performance (i.e., hydrogen metering requires gas
analysers). This use case, recently identified, may alter our application for the Alpha
phase.
• Cost of measurement on the gas network should be reduced when compared to the
current analyser systems e.g., FCS will cost less than £5,000, 5% of the cost of
separate natural gas and Hydrogen gas analysers.
• Ability to connect and apply machine learning and artificial intelligence projects /
programmes to real time data to automate decision making.
• Ability to determine embrittlement and permeability ratios to drive predictive asset
management.
Reducing CO2 earlier with blended hydrogen will have a massive benefit to the environment
and result in lower imports of natural gas. Most people agree that to build energy resilience
into the economy will require new forms of heating for the UK housing stock, most of which
are old stock and not suitable for electrically driven heating. There needs to be a balanced
approach and hydrogen heated houses and industrial businesses will need digitally driven
hydrogen.
Quantitative measures for the new digitised hydrogen system to use will be as follows.
• Wobbe Index.
• Relative density.
• Calorific Values.
• Gas percentages by gas type.
The timeliness of this project is near perfect, as the results can be added to current
HyDeploy2 and Future Grid projects.
This discovery project, and the feasibility work that has been undertaken, has demonstrated
that the benefits / impacts outlined are still achievable with modest investment. Furthermore,
the project, when complete, should bring in significant revenue to the UK economy because
this is an international problem that needs to be resolved prior to full Net Zero via blended
hydrogen.
Project Changes:
Changes in scope during the project were as follows.
• Due to laboratory restrictions we were not able to test >20% blends of hydrogen, now
planned for future work
• For operational / security reasons we had to create a 2nd instance of the Azure
platform rather than connecting to the production version on National Grid systems.
