This programme of work will assess the key strategic gas system options, impacts, barriers and opportunities in order to support policy decisions on whether to proceed with a transition to hydrogen to produce heat across domestic, commercial and industrial sectors.
This project will recommend and develop a standardised methodology (or set of increasingly advanced methodologies) to support repeated and consistent appraisal for a set of credible and compatible ends states, pathways and scenarios (test cases) used in the System Transformation programme. The outputs will allow comparison of the benefits and challenges associated within each test case to provide the practical evidence required to inform future policy on heat.
Benefits
1 - Define a full list of common assessment criteria that can be used for alternative network pathways assessment, with the key [primary and secondary] criteria identified.
2 - This project will recommend and develop a methodology (or set of increasingly advanced methodologies) for appraising a set of credible and compatible ends states, pathways and scenarios (test cases) used in the System Transformation programme.
3 - The outputs will allow comparison of the benefits and challenges associated within each test case to provide the practical evidence required to inform future policy on heat.
4 - Provide evidence for a wider rollout of hydrogen in gas networks, enabling the repurposing of existing natural gas networks and the design, construction, testing, operation and maintenance of new assets for the transportation of H2 and Natural Gas/H2 mixtures.
5 - Provide evidence for a smooth and lowest cost transition to low/zero-carbon gas infrastructure.
More broadly, the project is an enabler to a wider UK hydrogen economy as it will:
6 - Contribute to the development of UK shared infrastructure for reaching Net Zero.
7 - Support the development of infrastructure for home heating systems to be hydrogen-ready.
8 - Strengthen policy-making for the Net Zero challenge.
9 - Generate exposure of new learning to the wider gas industry community to promote debate and knowledge uptake.
Learnings
Outcomes
The project identified six key areas where the transition of gas infrastructure on a path to net zero could impact GB society: environment, cost, deliverability, end user and societal impact, uncertainty, and security of supply and flexibility. For each area, the project developed an assessment methodology.
The project also carried out a first-cut assessment in each criteria area to assess 7 ‘test cases’ provided by the CFES team. The findings of this assessment are summarised in Section 11 of the final report, with further detail in the supporting chapters.
Another outcome for this project has been that the developed framework has been used to inform the economic analysis for Project UNION (the headmark project for a UK hydrogen backbone of NTS pipeline).
Finally, the project also listed the key evidence gaps in the assessment evidence base and recommended priority areas for future work.
The final report sets out the full outcomes of the project in detail. Please refer to this for additional information.
Lessons Learnt
Process learnings
The main lesson learned from the AM project that could be applied to future projects/subsequent work is around the interaction between the different sub-project teams (AM/CFES). The AM work was reliant on outputs from the CFES team, and both projects were running concurrently. This meant that delays on the CFES project timeline had knock-on impacts on the AM timeline. In the future, this type of interaction could be improved by:
- Staggering the start times of dependent projects to build in a buffer time for any delays
- Earlier signalling when delays are likely
- Clear agreement of the outputs that will be shared at each point
Research learnings
We set out six assessment areas: cost, environment, deliverability, end user and societal impact, uncertainty, and security of supply and flexibility. Each area is made up of a set of criteria and sub-criteria that are detailed in our interim and final reports.
The performance of test cases against the cost and environment criteria does not significantly vary within the same scenario (e.g. across the four test cases that relate to the high hydrogen scenario). This is because, although the networks have different configurations, a similar overall length of network is required to serve a given level of hydrogen demand, which results in similar cost and environmental impacts. This suggests that these factors will not be the key determinant of which test cases to rule out (although these results may change under a more detailed subsequent assessment, and so should be kept under review).
There is greatest variance across test cases within the uncertainty assessment, where the alternative network configurations are associated with a significantly different set of risks. For example, networks without a hydrogen backbone transmission network may be less adaptable to changes in the geographic distribution of hydrogen demand. In addition, test cases with later conversion of assets are likely to have lower risk of stranded assets.
Finally, some important areas were not evaluated in detail in the first-cut assessment: most notably deliverability. In Section 10 of the report we set out the key areas for future research.
