United Kingdom

The Hy4Heat Safety Assessment has focused on assessing the safe use of hydrogen gas in certain types of domestic properties and buildings. The summary reports (the Precis and the Safety Assessment Conclusions Report) bring together all the findings of the work and should be looked to for context by all readers. The technical reports should be read in conjunction with the summary reports. While the summary reports are made as accessible as possible for general readers the technical reports may be most accessible for readers with a degree of technical subject matter understanding. All of the safety assessment reports have now been reviewed by the HSE.<br/><br/>This document is an overview of the Safety Assessment work undertaken as part of the Hy4Heat programme

To ensure the UK’s net zero targets are met the transition from conventionally fueled transport to low emission alternatives is necessary. The impact from increased decarbonised electricity generation on ecosystem services (ES) and natural capital (NC) are not currently quantified with decarbonisation required to minimise impacts from climate change. This study aims to project the future electric and hydrogen energy demand between 2020 and 2050 for car bus and train to better understand the land/sea area that would be required to support energy generation. In this work predictions of the geospatial impact of renewable energy (onshore/offshore wind and solar) nuclear and fossil fuels on ES and NC were made considering generation mix number of generation installations and energy density. Results show that electric transport will require ~136599 GWh for all vehicle types analysed in 2050 much less than hydrogen transport at ~425532 GWh. We estimate that to power electric transport at least 1515 km2 will be required for solar 1672 km2 for wind and 5 km2 for nuclear. Hydrogen approximately doubles this requirement. Results provide an approximation of the future demands from the transport sector on land and sea area use indicating that a combined electric and hydrogen network will be needed to accommodate a range of socio-economic requirements. While robust assessments of ES and NC impacts are critical in future policies and planning significant reductions in energy demands through a modal shift to (low emission) public transport will be most effective in ensuring a sustainable transport future.

An update on the proposed commercial frameworks for transport and storage power and industrial carbon capture business models.

E4tech’s 6th annual review of the global fuel cell industry is now available here. Using primary data straight from the main players and free to download it quantifies shipments by fuel cell type by application and by region of deployment and summarises industry developments over the year.



2019 saw shipments globally grow significantly to 1.1 GW. Numbers grew slightly to around 70000 units. The growth in capacity came mainly from cars Hyundai with its NEXO and Toyota with its Mirai together accounting for around two-thirds of shipments by capacity. Unit numbers are still dominated by Japan’s ene-Farm cogeneration appliances at around 45000 shipments. Large numbers of trucks and buses are now manufactured and shipped in China though numbers deployed are limited by the availability of refuelling infrastructure. But growth in China is uncertain as policy changes are under discussion.



2020 looks like it will be an even bigger year again dominated by Hyundai and Toyota. The Japanese fuel cell market is expected also to grow partly on the back of the Tokyo ‘Hydrogen Olympics’. Korea is another growth story buoyed by its latest roadmap which aims to shift large swathes of its economy to hydrogen energy by 2040. Elsewhere much of the supply chain development is in heavy duty vehicles and big supply chain players like Cummins Weichai and Michelin are making significant investments.

This is a Network Innovation Allowance funded project overseen by a steering group comprising the UK and Ireland gas network operators (Cadent Gas Networks Ireland National Grid Northern Gas Networks SGN Wales and West). The project follows on from previous studies that modelled the role of green gases in decarbonising the GB economy. The role of this study is to understand the transition from the GB economy today to a decarbonised economy in 2050 focusing on how the transition is achieved and the competing and complementary nature of different low and zero emission fuels and technologies over time.

While the project covers the whole economy it focuses on  transport especially trucks as an early adopter of green gases and as a key enabler of the transition. The study and resulting report are aimed at the gas industry and government and tries to build a green gas decarbonisation narrative supported by a wide range of stakeholders in order clarify the path ahead and thereby focus future efforts on delivering decarbonisation through green gases as quickly as possible.

The objectives of the study are:

• Analyse the complete supply chain production distribution and use of electricity biomethane bio-SNG and hydrogen to understand the role of each fuel and the timeline for scaling up of their use.
• Develop a narrative based on these findings to show how the use of these fuels scales up over time and how they compete and complement one another.

Once a clear narrative to 2050 was developed put togethera series of policy asks and stakeholder actions to show what is required to achieve the narrative. The study included analysis of two scenarios a High Green Gas scenario and a Low Green Gas scenario. The narrative presented here focuses on the High Green Gas scenario with commentary on the Low Green Gas scenario covered in Chapter 6.

Green gases

This report discusses the future role of ‘green gases’ which are biomethane and hydrogen produced from low- and zero-carbon sources each produced via two main methods:

Biomethane from Anaerobic Digestion (AD): A mature technology for turning biological material into a non-fossil form of natural gas (methane). AD plants produce biogas which must then be upgraded to biomethane.

Biomethane from Bio-Substitute Natural Gas (Bio-SNG): This technology is at an earlier stage of development than AD but has the potential to unlock other feedstocks for biomethane production such as waste wood and residual household waste.

Blue Hydrogen: Hydrogen from reformation of natural gas which produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide. 90-95% of the carbon is captured and stored making this a low-carbon form of hydrogen.

Green Hydrogen: Water is split into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis using electricity generated by renewables. No carbon emissions are produced so this is zero-carbon hydrogen."

Outline

This independent report by Vivid Economics and University College London was commissioned to support the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) 2020 report The Sixth Carbon Budget -The path to Net Zero. This research provided supporting information for Chapter 7 of the CCC’s report which considered the UK’s contribution to the global goals of the Paris Agreement.

Key recommendations

The report models ‘leadership-driven’ global scenarios that could reduce global emissions rapidly to Net Zero and analyses the levers available to developed countries such as the UK to help accelerate various key aspects of the required global transition.

It highlights a set of opportunities for the UK alongside other developed countries to help assist global decarbonisation efforts alongside achieving it’s domestic emissions reduction targets

Webinar to accompany the launch of the Cadent Future Role of Gas in Transport report which can be found here

The iron and steel industry is one of the world’s largest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases. One promising option for decarbonising the industry is hydrogen direct reduction of iron (H-DR) with electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking powered by zero carbon electricity. However to date little attention has been given to the energy system requirements of adopting such a highly energy-intensive process. This study integrates a newly developed long-term energy system planning tool with a thermodynamic process model of H-DR/EAF steelmaking developed by Vogl et al. (2018) to assess the optimal combination of generation and storage technologies needed to provide a reliable supply of electricity and hydrogen. The modelling tools can be applied to any country or region and their use is demonstrated here by application to the UK iron and steel industry as a case study. It is found that the optimal energy system comprises 1.3 GW of electrolysers 3 GW of wind power 2.5 GW of solar 60 MW of combined cycle gas with carbon capture 600 GWh/600 MW of hydrogen storage and 30 GWh/130 MW of compressed air energy storage. The hydrogen storage requirements of the industry can be significantly reduced by maintaining some dispatchable generation for example from 600 GWh with no restriction on dispatchable generation to 140 GWh if 20% of electricity demand is met using dispatchable generation. The marginal abatement costs of a switch to hydrogen-based steelmaking are projected to be less than carbon price forecasts within 5–10 years.

Hydrogen has the potential as an energy solution to contribute to decarbonisation targets as it has the capability to deliver low-carbon energy at the scale required. For this to be realised the suitability of the existing natural gas pipeline networks for transporting hydrogen must be established. The current paper describes a feasibility study that was undertaken to assess the potential for repurposing the UK’s Local Transmission System (LTS) natural gas pipelines for hydrogen service. The analysis focused on SGN’s network which includes 3000 km of LTS pipelines in Scotland and the south of England. The characteristics of the LTS pipelines in terms of materials of construction and operation were first evaluated. This analysis showed that a significant percentage of SGN’s LTS network consists of lower strength grades of steel pipeline that operate at low stresses which are factors conducive to a pipeline’s suitability for hydrogen service. An assessment was also made of where existing approaches in pipeline operation may require modifications for hydrogen. The effects of changes in mechanical properties of steel pipelines on integrity and lifetime as a result of potential hydrogen degradation were demonstrated using fitness-for-purpose analysis. A review of pipeline risk assessment and Land-Use Planning (LUP) zone calculations for hydrogen was undertaken to identify any required changes. Case studies on selected sections of the LTS pipeline were then carried out to illustrate the potential changes to LUP zones. The work concluded with a summary of identified gaps that require addressing to ensure safe pipeline repurposing for hydrogen which cover materials performance inspection risk assessment land use planning and procedures.

The Innovate UK KTN Hydrogen Innovation Network is bringing you this second episode with Steffan Eldred and Simon Buckley from Innovate UK KTN who continue their ‘back to basics' approach and delve deeper to understand where hydrogen should be used with their special guest Joanna Richart Head of Hydrogen Business at Ricardo. As with any technology or fuel discussions can get carried away implying they are the solution to all things but at Innovate UK KTN we strongly believe that we should ensure hydrogen is used where it can be most effective for decarbonising energy industrial and chemical industries.



The podcast can be found on their website