Projects

This project will help Cadent to understand considerations for a Net Zero Multi-Vector at a town scale to inform future activity on preparation for repurposing. An area will be chosen which is representative of different networks housing stock and demographics which will require different approaches and engagement.

In metering applications Equations of State (EoS) are mathematical models that are used to convert measured volumes to standard units. This enables transfer from volume to mass allowing customers to be billed and for the networked to be balanced in energy. Metering and network balancing cannot be performed in volume as it doesn’t account for relative varying gas component concentrations – and therefore CV.

The EoS currently used (AGA8) is acceptable for up to 5% hydrogen but after this point it’s uncertainty is unknown – meaning the network may be unable to maintain accurate billing or system balancing. This project will obtain experimental data for a range of net zero gases and compare the output of several EoS for accuracy against real measured NTS-representative conditions.

National Gas are investigating the use of the National Transmission System to transport hydrogen and hydrogen blends. To support this research and testing is required to understand the risks of high pressure hydrogen transmission including ignition. This project will identify for 100% hydrogen and blends of hydrogen up to 20% the sources of ignition including how the distance of ignition sources affects the likelihood of ignition. It will also investigate the frequency and the different types of ignition events e.g. jet fires. Lastly it will look at the probability of ignition on sites and in pipework.

This project will undertake testing on technology for distributed production of low carbon hydrogen from natural gas biogas or other short chain hydrocarbons from waste. Which uses 90% less electricity than electrolysis of water and with 68% lower total energy costs.

The project will support early movers and convert gas from our network into a low carbon hydrogen solution. The compact and modular deployment of the technology enables hydrogen production systems to be installed directly at the energy user's site. These systems convert grid-supplied natural gas to hydrogen on demand eliminating the need for additional infrastructure or on-site hydrogen storage and leaves the rest of the network unaffected

This project will consider what role the below ground gas network (new or repurposed) could play in transporting energy over long distances instead of electricity transmission and distribution upgrades. The project will help WWU understand how the use of the current or future gas system would compare to electricity infrastructure for long distance transmission and what factors could influence cross system decision making. The project will also create a comparison tool that allows users to compare case studies.

National Gas Transmission (NGT) own and operate the UK’s National Transmission System (NTS) transporting natural gas from terminals to end users. NGT have ambitions to repurpose the existing to transport hydrogen and hydrogen blends. Understanding the impact of hydrogen on our existing assets is a key enabler for this.

This project will conduct design of flare for hydrogen and its blends and vent system for hydrogen its blends and carbon dioxide and offline physical testing to provide evidence that hydrogen / hydrogen blends could be flared and vented safely and environmentally in for NTS.

Gas networks supply embedded power stations that support the electricity network. These embedded generators can fire up without any warning to GDNs and is causing significant challenges to gas networks.

GDNs are required to submit hourly gas demand nominations to National Gas for each offtake point within specified time deadlines.

Embedded generators are small. They are not included in the UNC’s requirements to notify their GDN of intended offtake activity due to their size being below the threshold for NExAs (network exit agreements). Despite this GDNs must include the demand from these embedded generators in their nominations to ensure there is sufficient gas within their network. This causes numerous challenges for SGN and other GDNs.

GDNs’ current forecasting process does not specifically forecast embedded gas generation and current models do not take inputs from the electricity market. Embedded generators act in a variety of electricity markets yet GDNs don’t have visibility of this demand.

It is anticipated that additional embedded generators will connect in the coming months/years as the demand for electricity increases.The challenge of not having knowledge of embedded generator’s demand and its potential to contribute to a storage shortage has been acknowledged by both EGRIT (Electricity and Gas Resilience Task Group) and NESO (National Energy System Operator). The benefits of creating a notification platform supported by a ML engine are various. Namely to develop an ML-enabled forecasting tool to predict gas demand from embedded generators with increased accuracy as delivery time approaches. In addition to create a notification platform to improve real-time visibility of embedded generator activities within the electricity and gas networks.

This NIA project aims to progress the FEmGE forecasting tool from TRL 1 to TRL 7 delivering a fully functional MVP. NGN will be funding this project to the value of £92333 and SGN to £184666 of the total of £276999.

This project concerns the research into welding residual stress values and the effect that they have on the overall pipework repurposing assessment route described in relevant hydrogen standards. Currently overly conservative values need to be applied for welding residual stresses in any repurposing assessment. This project aims to build evidence on actual and modelled residual stresses seen within the pipelines industries with a focus on natural gas pipelines. As the welding residual stress is a critical aspect of the fracture mechanics assessment any improvements which can be gained would have an overall positive impact on the assessment results.

Decarbonisation of UK transport and the related Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate requires companies to transition their commercial vehicle fleets to Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) or alternative new emerging technologies (e.g. FCEC). As an operational utility network with responsibility for public safety WWU’s fleet undergoes a more challenging and varied range of duty cycles than most commercial fleets includes vehicles that are required to provide on-site power and must be capable of meeting WWU’s statutory duty to respond quickly to Public Reported Escapes.

Within this challenging operational context WWU must deliver a fleet transition at the lowest feasible cost to assure value for money for our customers. This is further complicated by the need to plan the fleet transition while the associated technological and policy landscape continues to evolve in parallel. Although the learnings generated from the project will be specific to WWU’s fleet as a case study they will be applicable to any networks with an operational fleet.

To assure a cost-effective transition and derisk future operations WWU require a Total Cost of Operation (TCO) model. This will be specifically targeted at our particular operational context capable of assessing the costs and capabilities of a range of ZEV options and crucially must be easy for staff to adopt for internal use and update in the future as new data and/or technologies become available.

The purpose of this project is to provide WWU with a TCO model that addresses our specific operational requirements ensuring that plans and investment decisions will be grounded in real-world technology assessments and our operational fleet data.

As the owner of the National Transmission System (NTS) National Gas is committed to responsibly managing our redundant assets in a manner that contributes to a sustainable lower-carbon future by decommissioning them responsibly refurbishing for re-use where viable and/or or changing their purpose where possible. This discovery project will identify decommissioned elements of redundant pipework on the transmission system which are unlikely to be used for refurbishment or part of any wider repurposing of the core network and explore the potential of repurposing these for alternative uses including the storage and/or transmission of electrical energy heat fuels water and data.