Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Some are touting the Hydrogen Economy as the way forwards, while others claim Heat Pumps are the future. Thus far at Siemens, I have only seen evidence to support the former. Anyone seen anything from industry to lend weight to the argument either way?

Recent Sunday Times Article on a Hydrogen trial for clean energy.
Emily Gosden, Energy Editor | 432 words.

Hundreds of homes in Scotland will be the first in the world to have their heating and cooking needs met by pure hydrogen after a £28 million trial won funding from the energy regulator. About 300 properties in the Levenmouth area of Fife will have hydrogen-burning boilers and cookers installed without charge and will be connected to a new pipeline network supplying them with 100 per cent “green” hydrogen. The gas will be produced through electrolysis, which will use electricity from a wind turbine to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The first homes are expected to be connected in 2022, with the trial initially running for four and a half years. It is being run by SGN, the gas network company, which has been awarded £18 million funding from Ofgem and £7 million from the Scottish government. Decarbonising Britain’s homes presents a significant challenge, with about 80 per cent of homes using natural gas boilers that emit carbon dioxide, which causes global warming. Hydrogen has been touted as a potential solution because it burns cleanly. Although boilers and cookers would need to be replaced, hydrogen boilers could be used in conjunction with existing central heating systems. Proponents say that this would be less disruptive than switching to all-electric heating systems, such as heat pumps. It also could enable the continued use of existing gas networks, which would be beneficial to companies such as SGN, which distributes gas to 5.9 million homes and businesses in Scotland and the south of England. Angus McIntosh, 42, director of energy futures for SGN, said that the trial was an “exciting opportunity to revolutionise the way millions of people heat their homes”. He said that the high costs for the demonstration project included the fact that the boilers and cookers were “essentially having to be handmade for the purposes”, but added that significant cost reduction was expected if hydrogen was adopted at an industrial scale. The hydrogen will be produced using an existing seven-megawatt wind turbine in Levenmouth and a storage facility will be constructed to hold enough hydrogen to supply the three hundred homes for five days with no wind generation. As a fallback, the electrolysis could be run using power from the national grid. Mr McIntosh said that the trial would be voluntary and would be “as safe or safer” as using natural gas. The hydrogen will have the same odour as natural gas and will burn with a coloured flame in the cooker. In the event of a leak, a safety device should detect it and cut off the hydrogen to prevent it “ever being able to accumulate to an explosive level”.