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UTILITY WEEK | NOVEMBER 2020 | 15 Build Back Better Hydrogen strategy needed Top of the wishlist for the sec- tor is a national hydrogen strat- egy, mapping out steps towards a hydrogen economy spanning multiple sectors, including avia- tion, shipping and rail, as well as domestic heat and industrial applications. Here, business minister Alok Sharma has indi- cated a publication date in early 2021. Work is also underway on the narrower issue of establish- ing "business models" for a low carbon hydrogen production, where BEIS published an interim report in August 2020. A hydrogen strategy – the lack of which was recently high- lighted by MPs on the Environ- mental Audit Committee – is seen as a means to narrow the gap between proof of concept and commercial viability. "It's important that the hydrogen strategy is published with clear visibility of what will be sup- ported to commercialisation levels," says Angus McIntosh, director of energy futures at SGN. "It's important to have a clear line of sight so that hydrogen becomes investable." Richard Goodfellow, partner, head of the Infrastructure, Pro- jects & Energy Group, agrees: "As is oen the way in GB, the policymakers are behind where the stakeholders are. The stake- holders are already investing continued overleaf QVT jí `l O 27% 11% 8% 16% 27% Agriculture, LULUCF and Waste Transport Heat Space Heating (and cooling) Hot Water Cooking Industrial Processes Other Buildings & Industry (non-heat) 17% 4% 2% 14% 468 MtCO 2 e UK emissions in 2016 across dierent sectors Fuel consumption for heat in 2017 (TWh) 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 DOMESTIC NON-DOMESTIC INDUSTRY 43% 14% 15% 5% 6% 18% Space Heating Space Heating Space Heating Cooking and Hot Water Cooking and Hot Water Cooking and Hot Water TWh. Percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding in hydrogen and exploring its potential. The role of the poli- cymakers is to speed up what is already happening." Meanwhile, delays to the Energy White Paper and Heat Strategy, both now due this autumn, have also impacted on progress. In the drive to decarbonise heat, hydrogen is constrained by the lack of pro- duction capacity and supply chain, but has the advantage that our homes and businesses are already equipped with com- patible infrastructure. both electrification and heat pumps, and hydrogen – in terms of scaling production. Both routes have issues so we need hybrid solutions. Continual wait- ing for the answer is unhelpful, because there won't be a single answer." Pilot projects include HyDeploy, where Cadent is feed- ing a 20 per cent hydrogen mix into commercial and domes- tic boilers at Keele University's private gas network to estab- lish that real-life performance matches the desktop model- ling; Needle reports a successful first phase. For its FutureGrid trial at Spadeadam in Cumbria, National Grid plans to repurpose redundant assets to construct a new transmission-level testing facility, comprising 3m-diameter pipework, valves, inlet and out- let pipes, and a connection to Northern Gas Network's H21 dis- tribution rig. While both these projects rely on blending natural gas and hydrogen produced using cur- rent methods, Scottish Gas Net- work's H100 trial in the town of Levenmouth, Fife, will offer 300 volunteer domestic consumers 100 per cent hydrogen produced by a new electrolysing facility, which will be powered by off- shore renewable electricity. "We'll have a 7MW turbine, a 4MW electrolyser, and the 300 domestic customers will con- sume 12-14,000kW hours per annum, or around 100 tonnes of hydrogen," McIntosh suggests, adding that hydrogen will also be stored on the site. At both the HyDeploy and FutureGrid trials, blending hydrogen at 20 per cent could be a key interim target: today's domestic or industrial boilers and cookers can typically accept hydrogen at this level without adverse effects (beyond this level, appliances would need to be "hydrogen-ready"). Blending at this level would also stimu- late production of both blue and green hydrogen. "If the whole of the UK was at 20 per cent, that would be a useful carbon reduc- tion and puts us well underway on the journey to a hydrogen future," says Green. Counter-intuitively, however, a 20 per cent blend would only represent a 6 per cent cut in a household's heat-related carbon emissions, because an equiva- lent volume of hydrogen holds less energy than methane. "But those are emissions that are easy to save, they don't require behav- iour change or new infrastruc- ture or assets," Needle says. A prerequisite to commercial blending is an update to gas safety regulations. As McIntosh says: "The Gas Safety Manage- However, the reverse is true of heat supplied by electrifica- tion and heat pumps: plenty of generation capacity and infra- structure upstream, set against the prospect of invasive works in millions of downstream homes and commercial properties. Combined approach Needle argues that the UK will be best served by steering a course that combines both approaches. "You need a combined approach because of the limitations – on "It's important to have a clear line of sight so that hydrogen becomes investable." ANGUS MCINTOSH, DIRECTOR OF ENERGY FUTURES AT SGN Source: Clean Growth – Transforming Heat. December 2018, BEIS