Our Vision is to support hydrogen transition at the lowest possible risk and cost to UK gas consumers as fast as possible to protect our climate. This project will undertake discovery as a primary step to support our vision to provide a network tool and a UK assessment capability. The aim of this is to support a safe, environmental and cost-effective transition by maximizing existing assets informing how much and where legacy PE assets need to be replaced and/or maintained. We do this in a minimally invasive way, scheduled ahead of conversion programs minimising unplanned workloads and time off gas for consumers. The solution uses live access sensing to analyse the internal characteristics of a pipeline transporting natural gas, and simulate changes, typically in the form of deterioration or leakage that may occur through changing factors such as gas type or pressure.
This captured data predominantly will give assurance and provide essential evidence to enable a greater understanding of risks associated with legacy assets. This project would gather underpinning condition sensing data for conversion strategies and build confidence in a common approach between UK networks. The project will aim to test and understand the viability of leakage sensing for conversion assessment to minimise uncertainty around pressure elevation to maximise the retention of current assets. The project supports the evaluation the costs, risks and opportunities of reproposing or decommissioning excising gas network infrastructure for use with hydrogen. This supports future energy provision for heating, power and transport, safely, at a low consumer cost and in a minimally carbon intensive way.
We meet the scope by implementing novel sensor and digital assessment infrastructure to improve network planning, modelling and forecasting capabilities around conversion and replacement risk for legacy assets with field gathered datasets. NGN developed and deployed robotics within the UK having operational expertise in solution deployment. Synovate has developed the sensor technology having research capability in thermography, vision, utilities and inspection. National Grid Transmission has developed and deployed robotics within the UKs Above Ground Infrastructure (AGIs) for non-destructive testing and inspection. These project partners are the best to continue this journey as the team holds knowledge and capabilities in sensing, pipeline inspection and hydrogen conversion where NGN have led many packages of work with the H21 and HyDeploy projects for Hydrogen. National Grid UKs Gas transmission operator with unparalleled access to and knowledge on the UKs AGIs.
Problem Bring Solved
Hydrogen is a critical energy solution that will enable the UK's transition to net Zero (UK Hydrogen Strategy, 2021). Hydrogen transition for heating and transport requires assurance for current assets to carry this new gas. As networks adopt hydrogen there are challenges including combustion ranges, combustion characteristics, higher leakage rate potential which may permeate and diffuse differently. Hydrogen's higher leakage potential, wider combustion rage and lower ignition energy present new challenges for gas networks.
There is significant ongoing work in H21 to understand the repurposing of gas assets for hydrogen. There is no known live inspection solution that assesses low rates of leakage which may increase after hydrogen conversion. Polyethylene (PE) was first installed UK gas networks in 1969. There are several grades and manufacturers and over the last 50 years there have been significant changes in installation techniques, tooling and fitting designs. A significant factor in the integrity of PE networks is the quality of construction. Modern installations practices (since 1990s) provide a more mechanistic and robust process.
Construction techniques pre-dating this period were varied and susceptible to human factors. Our assumption is that a percentage of the portfolio of network assets require evidentialassessment to determine actual and future state characteristics prior to conversion, to decrease uncertainty of costs and associated impacts. We aim to provide a cost effective, minimally disruptive tool for verification of current network assets to carry hydrogen at an elevated pressure. This would balance cost, assurance and risk to provide an efficient and effective transition in the shortest timelines possible. This project will enable better understanding of the challenges that will be faced relating to legacy PE assets and will inform risk, future monitoring requirements and reduce conversion costs.
Impacts and benefits
We believe that the project is worth pursuing, is cost effective against social carbon costs and provides a roadmap to strategically challenge the high costs of Leakage Detection And Repair (LDAR). Within the potable water industry, leakage is frequently targeted below economic
value. Should this become the case as the gas industry moves towards net zero, we will require significant and rapid advancements of sensing and scalability.
We have built a detailed quantitative benefits projection against our use cases, summarised in our Alpha submission and supporting texts. From the learning in the discovery phase, we aim to include provision for financial modelling and analysis against the use case pilots. This is due to the variability of data and volatility with the energy market. These models can be refined and evidenced against our aspired multi GDN pilot, properly informing costs and impacts of leakage.
The LeakVISION system enables GDNs to assess the condition of pipeline assets, informing future risk management and the digitisation of assets, vital for the next generation of gas engineers. Using LeakVISION and STASS together facilitates a comprehensive LDAR service. LeakVISION locates possible leakage, STASS remediates remotely. The repair is checked with LeakVISION. This method forms an all-inclusive solution to LDAR requirements, and addresses background leakage which otherwise would have gone undetected. We aim to challenge costs associated with LDAR programs, provide insight to leakage dynamics within gas networks and pioneer the detection technology required for hydrogen network operation.
