The ignition probability of hydrogen has already been assessed in the H100 Hydrogen Consequence project, Hy4Heat and H21 projects however these have generally been in hydrogen rich atmospheres with the risk being a vapour cloud deflagration or detonation and less so on spontaneous ignition of hydrogen leaks which represents a less significant risk.

The objective of this Project is to gain a better understanding of ignition sources and ignition probabilities to determine the potential for hydrogen gas leaks to ignite immediately or
spontaneously in buildings associated with small services (i.e.domestic and light commercial).

Benefits

Around 1000-2000 properties are required to take part in the Hydrogen Village Trial.  Current hydrogen gas heating trials such as H100 Fife utilise the highly conservative risk mitigation measures identified from Hy4Heat to reduce the risk of gas leaks and ignition to as low as reasonably practicable in both upstream and downstream settings (e.g. meter box located outdoors, use of EFVs, use of flame failure devices, etc). However, implementing these measures for larger scale trials (such as the Hydrogen Village Trial) becomes exponentially expensive and impractical. Therefore, this programme of work is required to further investigate this risk and assess if the conservative mitigation measures can be optimised.   

To achieve the net zero targets set by the UK and Scottish governments by 2050 and 2045 respectively, there are many different routes that are currently being investigated. However, the Hydrogen Village Trial which this project supports, can form the evidence of converting the existing GB gas networks to 100% hydrogen. This conversion has the potential to save millions of pounds with minimal gas customer disruption versus alternative decarbonisation solutions.