Natural Gas Sector Urged To Be Ready For Hydrogen

A new initiative has been launched aimed at encouraging the natural gas sector to ‘be ready for hydrogen’ by developing practical processes and procedures for the introduction of hydrogen to the grid.

Under the HYREADY initiative, project partners will work together to deliver a broadly accepted methodological description of the steps and aspects to be considered by TSOs and DSOs across the globe on the measures they could take to prepare natural gas grids for hydrogen injection with acceptable consequences.

“We have seen an increasing number of projects needing access to natural gas infrastructure for renewable gases,” says DNV GL project manager Onno Florisson. “With multiple organisations having the same objective, our industry guidelines will address the ‘how-to’ questions for gas system operators so that they can be confident both in preparing their natural gas grids for the accommodation of hydrogen and in the consequences related to hydrogen injection.”

To successfully introduce pure hydrogen (e.g. from Power-to-Gas) and hydrogen containing mixtures (e.g. syngas) into natural gas grids, the impact and acceptability needs to be assessed to evaluate amongst others the performance and safety of end user appliances, system integrity and integrity management, energy transport capacity and compression efficiency.

The project will run for two years and is split into four work packages; transmission systems, distribution systems, end-user infrastructure and appliances (both domestic and industrial) and the design of a hydrogen injection facility. The impact of hydrogen on the natural gas system will be addressed on both a component and system level. HYREADY will be based on existing knowledge: there is no experimental work foreseen to be carried out in the framework of this project. The project will take the outcomes of projects like NATURALHY, HIPS and many others on board.

HYREADY will capture the outcomes of the project into a practical methodological description of the steps and aspects to be considered to support the actual implementation of hydrogen injection into the natural gas system.