Project description
Switching homes from natural gas to hydrogen
European policymakers are increasingly acknowledging the important role that hydrogen will play in existing gas networks to meet targets for decarbonisation with minimum consumer disruption. Using the existing gas infrastructure, hydrogen and hydrogen admixtures can be used as an alternative to natural gas for space heating, water heating and gas cooking. The EU-funded THyGA project sets out to develop and communicate a detailed understanding of the impact of blends of natural gas and hydrogen on end use applications, specifically in the domestic and commercial sectors. Researchers will test around 100 residential gas appliances in various hydrogen concentration scenarios, and provide a generic protocol that can be adapted for virtually any appliance. Ultimately, they will make recommendations along the gas value chain for appliance design, manufacture and certification.
Objective
THyGA main goal is to enable the wide adoption of hydrogen and natural gas (H2/NG) blends by closing knowledge gaps regarding technical impacts on residential and commercial gas appliances. For this purpose, THyGA will:
•Screen the portfolio of technologies in the domestic and commercial sectors and assess theoretically the impact of hydrogen / natural gas admixture in order to have a quantitative segmentation of the gas appliance market and a selection of the most adequate products to be tested
•Test up to 100 residential and commercial gas appliances (hobs, boilers, CHP, Heat pumps, etc.) and how 200 Million of European gas appliances will react to various H2 concentration scenarios
•Benchmark and develop pre-certification protocols (test gases) for different level of H2 in natural gas for coming integration in standardization, these protocols will be validated through tests
•Make recommendations for manufacturers, decision makers and end-users along the gas value chain to enable mitigation strategies for retrofit
THyGA will provide an extensive understanding of previous projects or studies related to H2NG admixture utilization with domestic and commercial appliances. Through extensive testing programme, the project will establish the impact of hydrogen concentration in natural gas on safety and performances of a large set of domestic and commercial appliances. Hence, THyGA will support recommendations for revising EN or ISO standards or drafting new standards and will fully support and secure FCH-JU’s “Hydrogen Roadmap Europe” (2019).
THyGA project gathers 9 renowned partners including 4 research centres, 3 industries, 1 SME, and 1 association covering the whole value chain of natural gas. The extensive advisory panel includes manufacturers, European and International Associations and DSOs included in H2/NG blends projects ensuring a constant challenge of the processed results and a great opportunity for a wide dissemination/communication plan to share results.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
92400 Courbevoie
France