Homes to be heated with hydrogen ‘for first time’ within 5 years

Domestic properties will be heated with hydrogen for the “first time” within five years, the North West Hydrogen Alliance (NWHA) has announced.

HyNet is a hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project in the North West which could see hydrogen blended into the gas grid by 2024.

The project could see hydrogen injected into the network managed by Cadent across Manchester, Liverpool, Cheshire and Warrington. It would also see hydrogen supplied in new pipelines to major manufacturing and power generation sites.

The industrial sites will be supplied with 100 per cent hydrogen, while 2 million homes will receive a blend consisting of up to 20 per cent hydrogen.

Eventually homes will be supplied with 100 per cent hydrogen once the scheme has proved a success.

It will initially save one million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year (rising to up to 10 million tonnes per year), creating a “replicable model for the rest of the UK and beyond”.

The HyNet consortium is led by Progressive Energy, with NWHA founding members Cadent and Peel Environmental also involved along with various other members.

Ed Syson, chief safety and strategy officer at Cadent, said: “HyNet is game-changing – achieving huge reductions on carbon emissions by 2024, just five years from now.

“It is a massive step in the UK’s journey to net zero. Keeping our homes warm using the similar appliances we use today, fuelling trains, buses, lorries and potentially even some cars, and powering industrial processes in a way that simply would not be achievable by relying on green electricity alone. To think otherwise, is just not realistic.

“We need a true energy mix to be sustainable – and to be realistic in opting for a future that takes advantage of multiple clean energy sources, like hydrogen, to get us to net zero.”

Dave Parkin, director at Progressive Energy, said: “HyNet is a real project, with real partners undertaking real engineering which can start delivering CO2 savings within the next five years.

“Why are we in the North West? The region has unique geology, with salt caverns that can be repurposed for hydrogen storage, and depleted gas fields in the Irish sea that can be used to store CO₂.”

Meanwhile professor Joseph Howe, chair of the NWHA and executive director of the Thornton Energy Institute at the University of Chester, said: “HyNet is a transformational project that will establish the North West as the leading region in hydrogen.

“We have the industry, infrastructure and innovation to make this a reality and we are ready to deliver.”

Last year Keele University announced it had been given the go-ahead by the Health and Safety Executive for a “ground-breaking” pilot project to blend up to 20 per cent hydrogen into the private gas network at the university.

The year-long HyDeploy scheme led by Cadent was awarded £6.8 million of funding in Ofgem’s Network Innovation Competition for 2016.