Learnings

Outcomes

The outcomes of this project are for the majority part unknown at this time, however they will be reported on once found. In terms of what is already known, we know that the process of excavation and repair is unlikely to need significant changes to the way they’re done now, and this may be further improved/ made safer by the use of robotics.

Value tracking

                                           Data Point                                        Data Point Definition

Maturity                             TRL 2-3                                              At concept level (NIA Project)

Opportunity                       100% of single asset class                Buried pipeline

Deployment costs              £0                                                      Unknown deployment costs, research project

Innovation cost                  £330,185                                           Cost of innovation project

Financial Saving                 £0                                                      Unknown at the moment- however will be known later after cba

Safety                                 0                                                        Unknown but project will be able to contribute to safe hydrogen                                                                                                       practices

Environment                      0.0                                                     Unknown at the moment- may be able to understand for cba and will be                                                                                                 able to contribute to hydrogen network development

Compliance                        Supports compliance                       Will help us comply with future hydrogen related safety regulations

Skills & Competencies       Departmental                                  Shall develop competencies from construction department

Future proof                      Supports business strategy              Supports the growth of a hydrogen network                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

The predicted net benefits will be:

-          Highlight areas of concern for further work to do with working safely with hydrogen on the excavation and repair process.

-          Identification of new potential excavation methods that can achieve the same outcome, but at a reduced cost from what is currently incurred.

Lessons Learnt

The predominant lessons from this project come from work packages 2 and 3. The final reports are still being altered for these, so a complete look at next steps cannot be given at this time. From the work package 2 report, apart from differences in the risk assessment with hydrogen being present in the pipe, there were no extra risks that came out of the report relating to this process to the point that these processes should be done in a different way. Further to this in work package 3, which complements work package 2, there is a potential basis to not only use some of the technologies researched for the current methane network but also to use them in the hydrogen network to increase safety and efficiency. The TRL level of technologies identified for the repair process were minimal and only in the lowest TRL levels. With the excavation process, many were identified and when we are able to see the cost benefit analysis done in work package 4, we will hopefully be able to identify the ones which would be the most suitable to research further.