Project Summary
HyNTS Deblending aims to develop and demonstrate technologies that separate hydrogen from natural gas/hydrogen blends for National Transmission System (NTS) transport applications. The solution will be mobile allowing it to be relocated on the network as it transitions to 100% hydrogen.
This Alpha application will take the learnings from Discovery and through a competitive tendering process will engage with manufacturers for both deblending and refuelling equipment to design the innovative solutions needed to demonstrate deblending, purification and refuelling directly from a transmission network.
Through the Discovery Phase, a technology review was completed and a functional specification for a deblending system was agreed. Early engagement with equipment suppliers and stakeholders was also carried out.
Through the Alpha phase, the potential for the deblending system to control the blend of hydrogen/natural gas for other users who require a very precise blend and remove hydrogen from natural gas for sensitive users to a level of <0.1% will be considered to maximise the deblending opportunity.
Addressing barriers to large scale hydrogen refuelling station roll out (Zero Emissions Transport theme)
This project directly addresses all of the scope challenges under the Zero Emissions Transport Theme. Successfully demonstrating NTS deblending technology enables large scale hydrogen distribution through the NTS for hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS). The successful roll out of the technology will accelerate hydrogen mobility roll-out by enabling HRS to access a secure hydrogen supply from low-cost, large scale, production facilities before 100% hydrogen NTS. Refuelling from the NTS is particularly well suited to hydrogen refuelling for heavy haulage, trains, buses and shipping, where large hydrogen demands can present challenges for hydrogen distribution by road.
The NTS deblending technology could also facilitate the early introduction of hydrogen to decarbonise the NTS connected industrial gas users and local gas networks. The system will be mobile to enable movement along the NTS as sections transition from natural gas, to blended hydrogen and then to carrying pure hydrogen. This will allow customers to transition to 'pure' hydrogen use ahead of other NTS connected users, while also protecting users who are not ready to accept a hydrogen blend or have very specific blend requirements. The flexibility provided by this technology will be vital for allowing the introduction of hydrogen into the NTS and the ability to separate hydrogen suitable for multiple applications will enable a cost optimisation of blending plans into the NTS to reduce costs of decarbonisation to all NTS connected users.
A team well placed to deliver this innovative project
The HyNTS Deblending project is led by a team with complementary skill sets needed to develop and deliver a deblending project in realistic operation conditions:
National Grid Gas PLC (GT&M), the NTS system operator, provide the depth of understanding of the requirements of NTS gas users and blending challenges from their existing blending and deblending studies.
Element Energy (EE), are a consultancy practice with extensive expertise in the hydrogen energy sector and project development and management. EE will manage the project and provide an understanding of the economics of the hydrogen supply chain.
Element 2 (E2) are a developer of hydrogen refuelling stations, who will provide insights into the hydrogen supply requirements for vehicles and the needs of the vehicle owner/operators.
The equipment supplier best placed to develop the designs for the system will be selected by competitive tender. The Discovery Phase has found that multiple experienced suppliers are available for the project.
Gas Networks - Cadent and NGN join the project to ensure alignment between the mobility development projects as seen in the additional project plan appendix.
Innovation Justification
Hydrogen is a zero-emission transport option that is well suited to heavy duty cycle and long range applications where battery electrification has limitations, for example heavy duty vehicles, shipping, trains and buses. However, hydrogen refuelling stations will face problems using current hydrocarbon supply methods as the scale of stations increases on key road corridors to multiple tonnes per day (e.g. supplying 100s of trucks and bus, multiple trains/ferries):
Hydrogen delivered compressed in trailers will face logistics challenges for multiple trailer deliveries (each carrying c. 1 t hydrogen) approximately x10 current fuel supply deliveries
Hydrogen production on-site is not appropriate in all locations due to space limitations and production capacity limitation, the high cost of electricity from the electricity network, regular maintenance costs and the reliability challenges of a single production source.
National Grid Gas PLC (GT&M) also faces challenges in quickly transitioning the National Transmission System (NTS) to carry hydrogen in place of natural gas as although some connected users will be ready to accept '100%' hydrogen others may be slower to adopt hydrogen or only accept a blend. The HyNTS deblending project will develop a solution that can separate hydrogen from a blend in the NTS, to supply pure hydrogen to those ready to transition to hydrogen ahead of other users and to support the protection of customers who require precise blends of hydrogen. The solution will be able to supply hydrogen at large scale to hydrogen refuelling stations, accelerating the uptake of hydrogen for transport.
In absence of the HyNTS deblending solution being developed, the supply of NTS connected users with hydrogen will be delayed until every connected user is ready for '100%' hydrogen or a specific blend. All the while, the roll-out of zero emission transport will be delayed due to limited refuelling infrastructure.
Innovating and filling knowledge gaps on previous deblending work
The technologies required for gas separation, compression and purification have been developed for industrial processes and are in use today. However, the scale of these systems is much larger than expected for the gas network applications and therefore costly to deploy. This project, will develop the first of a kind deblending facility that applies to the NTS's specific challenges, building on existing technologies:
Being able to separate hydrogen and natural gas to the two purities required by targeted users.
Being developed to handle the input flow and blend variation experienced in the NTS, while still maintaining product purity.
Providing a mobile cost-effective solution that can be migrated around the NTS as it transitions to hydrogen.
A project only fundable through Strategic Innovation Fund
The project will develop and demonstrate NTS deblending systems for transport applications on the FutureGrid test site. The system cannot be adopted into business as usual until there are significant hydrogen blends in the NTS. First use of the system in BAU is in-line with Project Union which is due to begin construction in 2026, waiting to develop the system will delay the ability for refuelling applications to link to the gas networks and delay the transition.
The demonstration facility, while demonstrating the full supply chain to hydrogen vehicles, will be built at a suitable scale to enable technology demonstration whilst minimising cost to the consumer through SIF. Enabling implementation post project with minimal additional work required.
Benefits
What are the most significant expected benefits of your project?HyNTS Deblending will develop, demonstrate and test a facility to 'deblend' hydrogen from a blended network and supply that hydrogen for purification and onwards to a hydrogen refuelling station.
Facilitating the UK governments targets
The technology developed in the HyNTS Deblending project will allow large volumes of hydrogen to be transported to power, industrial, heat and mobility users through a blend in the National Transmission System (NTS), before all users are ready to accept 100% hydrogen. A customer who may not be ready for higher levels of hydrogen initially can be protected allowing the others to transition before them. This enables hydrogen and natural gas to be transported from producers to users in parallel, which will accelerate the UK transition to hydrogen and support the UK Government's target of 10 GW of low carbon hydrogen production by 2030.
Providing a low cost, reliable hydrogen supply to transport applications and industry
The supply of large scale hydrogen for transport demand requires either delivery by liquid hydrogen (which is expensive) or the local production of hydrogen at the point of use. Deblending from the NTS will enable a number of benefits to connected system users:
A more reliable hydrogen supply is provided, by utilising storage within the network, users are connected to multiple large scale production projects, reducing dependency on supply from local facilities and accessing hydrogen production economies of scale.
The ability to distribute via the NTS will enable production facilities to be sited in a location optimised for hydrogen production. This particularly suits hydrogen production by electrolysis, which can be positioned where there is sufficient space and large quantities of renewable energy available.
Accelerated hydrogen refuelling infrastructure across the UK due to ease of access to a hydrogen supply and so promoting the hydrogen transport economy.
The reliability of hydrogen supply also reduces the need for costly compressed hydrogen storage at refuelling stations.
These benefits will be quantified through an economic assessment, that compares the potential cost savings (per kg H2) available from large scale hydrogen production and transportation via the NTS, to the cost of local smaller scale hydrogen supply with storage.
Providing further distribution cost benefits and avoiding logistics challenges
Large scale refuelling stations, e.g. for the marine sector or HGVs at motorway hubs, would require multiple compressed hydrogen trailer deliveries daily, presenting a logistics challenge and requiring a large quantity of on-site hydrogen storage (which will require special consenting). Removing these trailer deliveries would also remove any additional traffic issues caused by that many deliveries. In addition, work in the Discovery Phase, has found distribution by blending/de-blending to be cost competitive with delivery by tube trailer for distribution distances of over 200km.
These benefits will be quantified through the cost of hydrogen supply by deblending compared to compressed hydrogen tube trailers and number of refuelling stations supplied by the NTS.
Providing CO2 savings to other NTS users (industrial, power & heat)
The deployment of deblending facilities will enable the supply of hydrogen and hydrogen blends to other NTS connected industrial users whilst protecting those users that cannot transition. For example, a single de-blending facility used to supply the median industrial gas user on the NTS with hydrogen to replace natural gas would supply 10.9 MW of H2 and provide emissions savings of 17.4 ktCO2 per year, and 1t per day of hydrogen taken for mobility to replace diesel use will provide a saving of 3.7 ktCO2 per year. These emissions savings will be quantified through the alpha phase by considering the energy use of the deblending facility and emissions savings from 100% hydrogen use.
Impacts and benefits
Facilitating the uptake of hydrogen across the UK by the 2030s, through distributing hydrogen fromcentralised facilities
to offtakers across the country
The UK Government has set a target to deploy 10 GW of low carbon hydrogen by 2030. To help to reach this ambition, large-scale
hydrogen production facilities are planned to be deployed within the coming decade, such as Gigastack, HyNET and Acorn.
Blending hydrogen into the NTS, with the capability to de-blend hydrogen to high purity at NTS offtake points, would create an
opportunity to use existing NTS infrastructure to distribute hydrogen produced at these large-scale facilities to hydrogen offtakers
across the UK (often long distances from centralised facilities) at low cost. Cost evidence is given below.
Purification of ~100% Network Hydrogen for fuel cell applications will be important in enabling repurposed assets to carry hydrogen
for transport applications. It is likely as hydrogen gas moves through the existing network it will pick up impurities that will need to be
removed prior to use in fuel cell applications to prevent failure.
Enabling the introduction of a new service of mobility fuels supply through the NTS, to accelerate de-carbonisation of
transport and reduce dependency upon fossil fuel imports
Blending and de-blending of hydrogen through the NTS could introduce a new market for the gas transmission system, by supplying
hydrogen to large-scale refuelling hubs. A vision of these refuelling hubs would be to supply hydrogen to large vehicles such as heavyduty road vehicles, trains and maritime vessels. Large vehicles of this type are in some cases are in some cases more difficult to
electrify directly using battery technology, so blending/de-blending could play a key role in decarbonising mobility.
In addition, low carbon hydrogen produced in the UK to replace imported fossil fuels would represent a step towards energy
independence and security.
Cost analysis in the Alpha phase suggests that, by accessing low-cost hydrogen from large-scale facilities and distributing hydrogen
effectively over long distances, fuel cell purity hydrogen could be supplied to large-scale 5,000 kg H2/day refuelling hubs at a cost of between c. £6.54-£7.66/kg H2. This would allow delivery of hydrogen via de-blending by 2030 at prices competitive with current fossil
fuels, particularly for cars and buses (see below).
Delivery of hydrogen at costs highly competitive with alternative supply options, and providing a number of other
practical and environmental benefits
Alpha phase cost analysis modelled hydrogen supply costs of de-blending to a 5,000 kg H2/day refuelling hub against alternatives,
in particular distribution by compressed gas hydrogen (CG H2) tube trailer and on-site electrolysis using grid imports.
In the central case of CG H2 delivery for a refuelling station sited 200 km by road from a "regional production facility", the final supply
cost to consumers is estimated at £8.34/kg H2. Depending on the blend profile on the NTS, a saving to consumers of between
£0.68-£1.61/kg H2 is estimated.
In regions of the country where regional hydrogen production facilities are more geographically spread, and tube trailer distances
may be further than 200 km, savings to customers may be even greater.
Hydrogen supply by blending/de-blending is also estimated to provide a saving of between £0.74-£1.67/kg H2 in comparison to onsite electrolysis.
De-blending offers an additional benefit over tube trailer supply of hydrogen by removing the need for multiple hydrogen deliveries
per day. A refuelling hub at the scale to dispense 5,000 kg H2/day (enough to refuel up to 200 heavy goods vehicles each day) would
require up to 8 deliveries daily. The equivalent volume of diesel could be supplied by a 36,000 litre tanker arriving once every two days.
As well as adding significant logistical challenges at the HRS site, tube trailer delivery would add significant local traffic. To supply the
demand of hydrogen for all UK FCEV vehicles by 2030 (as estimated by UK H2Mobility), diesel delivery trucks would potentially emit
over 95 kt CO2e each year.
De-blending would also benefit from supply from multiple hydrogen production facilities connected to the NTS, unlike both tube trailer
delivery and on-site electrolysis. This may improve the reliability of hydrogen supply to mobility customers. Refuelling stations may also
require smaller buffer storage as a result, thereby reducing the overall levelized hydrogen cost further and having safety implications by
reducing the volumes of hazardous gas stored on-site.
