This project will assess the impact of transition to hydrogen through hydrogen/natural gas blends and 100% conversion for downstream industrial and commercial installations by the collection of gas user information. Although information for large, major industrial users is available as they must report emissions are part of their permit to operate, there are fewer available details for medium scale industrial and commercial installations. The collection of gas user information will provide a database register that identifies potential sensitivities with appropriate mitigations
The project is critical in providing a logical and repeatable methodology that can be applied by all GDN operators to capture required information prior to a transition of the network to hydrogen. This will allow optimisation of decarbonisation in the network and provide insight to the current level of customer interest in plant conversion or replacement to hydrogen from natural gas.
Benefits
The project is critical in providing a logical and repeatable methodology that can be applied by all GDN operators to capture required information prior to a transition of the network to hydrogen. This will allow optimisation of decarbonisation in the network and provide insight to the current level of customer interest in plant conversion or replacement to hydrogen from natural gas.
The findings from this project will provide beneficial information to ongoing SGN projects such as Aberdeen Vision, North East Coast and Industrial Cluster and Southampton Water projects, all looking to stimulate the hydrogen economy. This project aligns to the future of gas, future of heat and decarbonisation aspects within SGN’s Energy futures Strategy.
Learnings
Outcomes
A summary of the outcomes drawn from the project include:
· Basic understanding of I&C applications and their readiness for hydrogen.
· RAG system established to map equipment to potential hydrogen solutions based on current and future work (Estimation of over 80% of installations could be readily converted based on majority of systems being space/water heating with hydrogen utilisation for these equipment readily available).
· Development of public/consumers relations recommended to take place at least 36+ months prior to conversion with at least 60+ months required to collate data, identify solutions, and embed these into the supply chain for hydrogen readiness.
· Data set considered incomplete due to challenges around stakeholder engagement necessary to deliver detailed knowledge and understanding of all installations.
· Several options for future engagement were developed during the project to be taken forward into future stakeholder engagement projects.
Recommendations include the development of a new roadmap or “blueprint” to plan, collate, coordinate, control and distribute information to all relevant stakeholders – establish a complete set of data requirements for informative decision making to be rolled out across the UK.
Lessons Learnt
A number of uncertainties and barriers were identified during the project that should be addressed through future projects using a more coordinated approach. These include:
· Variability of equipment and the locations where this equipment is being utilised.
· I&C customers and equipment developers identified a lack of hydrogen testing facilities at which required research and development of hydrogen equipment could take place.
· The challenge is for solutions to be developed for all users prior to the commencement of network conversion to mitigate the need to run dual networks which will not be practicable nor cost effective.
· Increased understanding of equipment conversion, replacement or retrofit to deliver a net zero solution for all I&C users is crucial in avoiding delays to proposed regional conversion programmes.
· Development of stakeholder engagement strategies on a large scale to engage with key influencers responsible for decarbonising existing I&C appliances (such as CEOs of large retail businesses) will be pivotal in the successful roll-out of hydrogen.
· A consolidated and wide-ranging end user equipment database is required to support plans for hydrogen conversion projects – capture all I&C users to be mapped to a national database of hydrogen solutions whilst identifying any gaps and recommendations relating to stakeholder engagement and R&D requirements.
