The use of hydrogen as a fuel for heating in homes took a step forward yesterday (18 November 2020) with the UK government’s announcement of extra funds to boost low carbon hydrogen. The overview was provided in a policy paper, “The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution”.
By 2023, it is anticipated that upto 20% blending of hydrogen will be allowed into the gas distribution grid (from a maximum of 0.1% today) and by 2025 a large village hydrogen heating trial will be supported. This would likely involve a switch to 100% hydrogen in a small section of the gas grid, with the use of hydrogen gas boilers. The plans indicate an entire town could be switched to hydrogen in the same way by 2030, in echoes of the approach used in the 1960/70s when the switch from coal gas to natural gas was made.
Also anticipated by 2025 is the installation of 1GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity. Some of this will be produced using electrolysers to convert water to green hydrogen. ITM Power will build the electrolysers which could be connected to offshore wind electricity generation to produce zero carbon hydrogen fuel. The remainder could be produced using natural gas and Carbon Capture Usage & Storage (CCUS) with captured carbon dioxide stored under the sea bed in the North Sea.
The plan is to have 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030.
In anticipation of this development, boiler manufacturers have been developing hydrogen ready gas boilers. The intention is that new boilers would be manufactured that could work with both the existing natural gas network and then easily switched over to a future hydrogen gas distribution system.
It remains to be seen how this drive for hydrogen as a domestic fuel finds its way into a revised Future Homes Standard (FHS) originally intended for introduction in 2025. A response from BEIS is awaited to the 2019 consultation on the initial draft of the FHS, which referred to banning gas connections in new build housing from 2025. As a minor aside, the first online version of the Ten Point Plan referred to bringing forward the introduction of FHS to 2023. This reference mysteriously disappeared within 30 minutes, presumably as the clash between hydrogen boilers and banning gas connections was identified. It was replaced by the statement that the government will “seek to implement the Future Home Standard in the shortest possible timeline, and consult shortly on increased standards for non-domestic buildings“.
The author’s view is that the Future Homes Standard will be amended to allow hydrogen ready boilers to be installed in new build homes, as an alternative to heat pumps.
References
- The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution (2020). HM Government. Available at: 10_POINT_PLAN_BOOKLET.pdf [Accessed 18 November 2020]
Hi Jon,
Stumbled on this while exploring your CH BTU/radiator choice calculator – much better than the trade suppliers can offer, which all seem to be cloned, 100mm loft insulation at best?).
I’ll lay my cards out upfront – a retired professor of chemical physics.
This whole thing about putting hydrogen into the domestic gas supply seems to me to be based on misunderstood school chemistry. It’s true that burning hydrogen with oxygen produces water and energy – that’s a potentially explosive combination which can be controlled by engineering and, for example, was used for the rockets that NASA used for the Apollo expeditions to the moon.
But in the domestic situation nobody has access to pure oxygen. Instead the hydrogen will be burnt in air (20% oxygen, 80% nitrogen). Now hydrogen combustion produces a flame much hotter than burning natural gas, and in the presence of excess nitrogen this is an ideal way to generate even more NOx.
Do we really want to do this in densely populated towns and cities ? Is this really a ‘green’ way forward ? There’s no CO2 to be sure but NOx pollution is a known substantial health hazard. The plan strikes me as politicians clutching at straws.
Among over issues the cost of upgrading the country wide gas distribution network (hydrogen is a notorious escaper from containers!) and the availability of lots of excess electricity to make hydrogen are of course not mentioned.
Hi Guy,
It is one of the possible solutions although it will take a lot to get there. My own preference would be to upgrade all existing homes to passivhaus standard or similar so there is little or no need for space heating anyway but I doubt there is the political will for this. It is also currently unrealistic for some older homes.
Those with a vested interest in the gas network want an alternative to heat pumps so they will push the hydrogen and boiler technology. Recent pilot work on a 20% blend of hydrogen in the gas network does show potential and arguably the safety issues can be addressed. Whilst hydrogen does have a wider range of flammability than natural gas it tends to disperse more quickly (upwards) due to its molecular weight.
100% hydrogen becomes more interesting as potentially it can be used in a fuel cell to generate electricity which would have close to zero nox emissions. That fuel cell could then be used to power a heat pump. The hydrogen could also be used to power a fuel cell for a car, or more likely HGVs. The gas network is being upgraded anyway to use plastic pipes as older cast iron pipes are replaced.
For upto 20% hydrogen in the gas supply it is hard to say whether/ how much nox emissions could rise as more work would need to be done on individual existing installed appliances (boilers and cookers) and their performance with different blends of hydrogen. Newer appliances can be designed to reduce nox production. Arguably nox from boilers is less of an issue than that produced by vehicles as it is more dispersed than the much higher densities found at very busy road junctions.
One attraction to putting more hydrogen than currently permitted by law into the gas network is that it is a way of storing energy – if we have huge wind farms sometimes producing more energy than needed it can be converted to hydrogen using electrolysis and put into the gas network where it at least provides some benefit. Storage in battery form would not be affordable at the GW scale and it would be a better way of using the excess energy. The UK government currently pays over a hundred million pounds annually to turbine operators not to generate electricity. This will potentially get worse as more wind turbines are added.
Not at all saying that any of this is the perfect solution. But likewise governments have a poor record of choosing the right future technologies so exploring a variety of approaches is probably better than imposing one simplistic solution. There are issues with all the solutions we have so letting investors bet on different technologies, provided they are safer than existing, is one way to go.
Time will tell which technologies emerge as real winners.
Kind regards
Jon