Northern Gas Networks, National Grid Transmission and Wales and West Utilities have committed to work with the stakeholders and the government to work towards a strategy to convert the gas distribution network to hydrogen, including the H21 100% hydrogen project. In order to achieve the H21 live trials and any future conversion projects, we will need to source enough hydrogen to operate the Local Transmission System (LTS) on hydrogen and to undertake initial conversion.
The strategy for providing hydrogen to the LTS network to allow staged conversion has not been fully developed. The current thinking on converting the National Transmission System (NTS)/LTS over to hydrogen is expected to not fully align with the requirements for staged conversion and still being able to supply natural gas to customers awaiting conversion.
In order to progress this, the various potential sources of hydrogen to the LTS needs to be investigated to confirm how hydrogen will need to be supplied to the network to meet the requirements of conversion and supply. This will have an influence over the strategy for conversion and so this project will also develop recommendations for the future conversion planning based upon the various options for hydrogen supply.
The project will need to: Review the current NIA/NIC projects on supplying hydrogen to LTS Networks, such as HyNTS Review other potential hydrogen supply options including local storage Review how these potential solutions may be applied to the networks Review how the various solutions will impact on the conversion process and what issues they may cause Review the conversion process for the NGN network, based upon this research and make recommendation for mitigating these issues that will need to be included in future conversion planning. These recommendations will also be applicable for other networks to learn from.
Objectives
Review all current information relating to hydrogen transmission and produce the output report reviewing the various ways being considered. Review the suitability of the various proposed hydrogen transmission solutions to evaluate the impact/influence on the future conversion process suggesting mitigation/further development needed to mitigate any issues
NIA Project Registration and PEA Document 2021-07-27 11_09 (108.0 KB)
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NIA_NGN_270 Close Down Report 2021-07-27 11_09 (91.2 KB)
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NIA Project Registration and PEA Document 2021-07-10 9_53 (10.6 KB)
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NIA Project Registration and PEA Document (97.8 KB)
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NIA_NGN_270 (03-12-2020 08-08-24) (47.0 KB)
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NIA_NGN_270 (20-11-2020 10-00-19) (46.9 KB)
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project-difference (08-04-2021 15-07-06) (7.0 KB)
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project-difference (08-04-2021 16-34-56) (7.0 KB)
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Learnings
Outcomes
All of the objectives and success criteria have been met and addressed in the report it was published on the H21 website, IGEM Knowledge portal and planning a workshop to brief out the report to Stakeholders.
This report provides a roadmap to a 100% hydrogen conversion of the gas grid with a view that this can be used for the conversion of the whole of the UK.
Lessons Learnt
It has been evident to see that there must be a great amount of detail focusing on ensuring the hydrogen production and storage is available for when it is needed – and that this must begin in advance of the demand increasing. This will likely mean capital expenditure years in advance of the supply actually being fully required as once conversion has begun it must continue and cannot be paused for years until new production and storage is online. It is therefore important to consider this in any future conversion – or even trial that may expand on itself.
Key to understanding the roll out of hydrogen conversion is the mix of demand profiles within the system and interconnectivity of pressure tiers. The process of hydrogen conversion will displace natural gas supply. The modelling indicates that conversion activities ideally need to work back from the network extremities towards the supply points and this includes converting the IP network to hydrogen – this will require new transmission pipelines or temporary local hydrogen production and storage facilities.
