Projects
NextGen Electrolysis – Wastewater to Green Hydrogen Beta
Wales and West Utilities are partnering with HydroStar Welsh Water and NGED to look at two demonstrator projects required from new electrolyser systems and the associated electrolyte that ensures resilience of hydrogen supply across the network giving best value for money and energy security within WWU’s network along with other UK wide Gas Distribution Network (GDN) customers.
Current electrolysers focus on stack-efficiency and hydrogen purity without considering real-world manufacturing and operational constraints and the high costs associated. This project focusses on utilising impurified-water e.g. rainwater storm-overflow and industrial process wastewater as feedstock which reduces operational constraints and costs for customers whilst enabling wide-scale uptake of low-carbon hydrogen.
Decentralised Alliance for South West Hydrogen (DASH)
Early cluster projects will not benefit I&C customers that are located away from industrial clusters and are traditionally more distributed in nature. These customers are unlikely to have access to hydrogen infrastructure developed through the primary industrial clusters. This presents the need for an alternative solution.
This project will explore the concept of how a larger number of low-volume hydrogen producers can support I&C customers in the absence of natural ‘clustering’ and high-volume production by using the South West region of WWU’s network as a case study. This will be done by exploring the whole systems concept of a gas network which is driven by distributed green hydrogen production at strategic locations where there is access to both gas and electricity grid infrastructure.
Demonstrating Downstream Procedures For Hydrogen
This project involves a comprehensive set of tasks aimed at implementing and validating a domestic safety system for hydrogen use including excess flow valves.
Biomethane Islands
To achieve decarbonisation targets all gas network operators in the UK need to demonstrate that the gas network can safely technically and economically facilitate the distribution of low-carbon gases (biomethane and hydrogen). In response to this challenge SGN aim to review the feasibility of the formation of biomethane islands in their Scotland area of operation. The outputs of this project will establish a business model for the optimisation of biomethane injection and formation of biomethane islands across the UK’s gas network. A feasibility study will address key areas including regulatory technical environmental social and commercial aspects as well as comprehensively assess the viability of developing Biomethane Islands. The outcome of the feasibility study will be to inform decision-making regarding project implementation. This will be captured and delivered in a comprehensive report and financial model of the business case. These islands will serve as models for sustainable living demonstrating the feasibility and benefits of a circular economy approach to energy production and waste management and offer a low disruption option for the decarbonisation of all classes of gas consumers - Industrial Commercial and Domestic.
Achieving Future Hydrogen Demand
This project constitutes a research study assessing the future demand for hydrogen across SGN regions and the role SGN infrastructure could play in facilitating access to hydrogen.
As the UK transitions to a low-carbon energy future gas networks must consider how strategic utilisation of existing assets can be realised. Using SGN’s extensive gas network to carry hydrogen instead of natural gas would be a major step towards decarbonisation. This repurposing necessitates an understanding of both the technical feasibility of repurposing pipelines to carry hydrogen and future hydrogen demand requirements.
SHINE Non-Electric Boiler
Power outages are a regular occurrence in Great Britian with average annual customer minutes lost in Great Britain range between 31.57 minutes 51.4 minutes depending on the Distribution Network Operator License Area (Statista 2021). This is of course not evenly distributed with outages varying from a few minutes up to more than a week in more extreme circumstances. Similarly single outages can affect a single property or several thousand properties depending on the cause. This project will aim to develop a low-cost user-friendly solution whereby customers in vulnerable situations will still be able to use their gas heated boiler as well as LPG and oil heated boilers in the event of a power outage.
Decentralised System Resilience
This project constitutes a research study investigating the opportunities for gas network infrastructure to support storage and balancing in a decentralised UK energy system. The research will consider how a decentralised system might look in the UK from now until 2030 and onto 2050. An evaluation will be made of how other countries are approaching decentralisation identifying examples the UK could draw on. Consideration will be given to how grid balancing will be achieved across various scenarios of peak demand and particular geographic locations in the UK and what challenges and opportunities this presents to gas networks.
Asset Records Readiness for Hydrogen
The project will evaluate and deliver a plan that ensures our asset records are suitably complete to support the net zero transition.
The project will reduce uncertainty and risk and provide a more realistic proximation of asset data.
The HSE has indicated that it will be unable to support a network’s hydrogen safety case until they receive “a clear plan for checking unknown assets and how networks will ensure that only suitable materials are present in the network”. This includes our transmission pipelines.
Additionally for the marginal extra effort it would be prudent to ensure the completeness of our asset records is sufficient for us to either plan for the conversion to hydrogen or decommission sections as users switch to other heating technologies.
Forecaster for Embedded Generation (FEmGE)
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.
H2 Housing Design
This project will explore ventilation and explosion relief requirements for housing currently used on the gas network for pressure regulating installations (PRIs). Housings currently provide security from a range of factors from weather to vandalism while also providing the necessary relief requirements in the event of an emergency. The understanding of these requirements for Natural Gas has been developed however work conducted in the IGEM TD/13 hydrogen supplement did not fully address whether these design specifications are suitable for use with Hydrogen. This multi-stage project will first explore the design specifications listed in industry standards (IGEM/TD/13 GIS/PRS/35 SGN/SP/CE/10 etc) and understand which of these may be appropriate and which may require redesign. The latter stage of this project will take the design specifications deemed to be unsuitable for use with hydrogen and conduct testing to develop revised design specifications which would provide the necessary relief requirements.
B-Linepack+ Alpha
Linepack flexibility is key for Gas Transmission to provide system resilience by management of swings within operational limits. In a hydrogen world we know our energy content per km of linepack will decrease by up to 76%. Therefore embedded resilience systems in the form of lined rock shafts are being investigated to supplement loss in linepack capability. We envision systems if implemented for hydrogen transmission to act similar to how now decommissioned natural gas holders were utilised for operational flexibility pressure regulation supply/demand mismatch management load balancing emergency backup and production buffering.
Finding the Hidden Vulnerable
This innovation project proposal is centred on trialling the development of a predictive model to identify customers in vulnerable situations whose heat comes from Cadent delivered gas that are missing out on the protections that the Priority Service Register (PSR) brings because they are “hidden” behind a non-domestic supply contract. The aim of the predictive model would be to aid Cadent to find these customers so that it can be ensured that they receive the support that they need in the event of an interruption to supply.
Integrity Management of Gaseous Carbon Dioxide Pipelines
Existing defect assessments and repair methodologies are aligned with the P/11 P/20 and PM/DAM1 management procedures and are adopted to inspect assess and repair the pipelines for defects and take suitable measures to reduce them. However the scope and applicability of these assessment and repair methodologies in the presence of gaseous phase carbon dioxide remain uncertain. The key challenges which the project aims to address are:
- Will existing repair techniques such as epoxy shell welded shells composite wraps gouge dressing etc. be suitable for transmission of gaseous phase carbon dioxide?
- What are the different defects we may encounter or consider hazardous in the presence of carbon dioxide? What are the impacts of carbon dioxide on each defect type? And how much does water/corrosion exacerbate this?
- Have the mechanisms of failure for each defect type changed after introducing carbon dioxide?
- Can we implement the assessment and repair methodologies safely? Are the techniques safe and suitable for the pipeline operations and maintenance teams?
The project seeks to answer the above in addition to understanding the types and extent of repairs across the NTS and review the impact of carbon dioxide on the effectiveness of these inspection assessment and mitigation technologies.
Determining Future Energy Demand of B&R Team Vans with Full On-Board Power
Wales & West Utilities is undertaking a major programme of change to support decarbonisation and deliver a Net Zero gas network. Decarbonisation of the vehicle fleet is an integral component of that programme.
WWU operates a fleet of nearly 1400 commercial vehicles the majority of these being vans up to 3.5 tonnes GVW. Our fleet – mostly diesel-fuelled - plays a crucial role in providing a safe and efficient service. In addition to our vehicle fleet WWU operates ~ 900 items of mobile plant including mini diggers and a wide range of trailers many of which are specialised.
WWU vans carry a wide range of power-operated tools and equipment some of this currently being powered by hydrocarbon fuels some by electricity and some by compressed air. Approximately a third of our van fleet (~400 units) is equipped with ‘full on-board power’ – a compressor and generator mounted under the van floor and mechanically driven by the diesel engine and operating as a source of on-site power.
This group of vehicles primarily supports below-ground network repair and replacement activity: it is a significant energy consumer so to help us understand how we can make an operationally cost-effective transition to zero emissions it is the on-site energy requirements of the tools and equipment powered by this group that Cenex will evaluate for this project. This evaluation will provide information which can take account of (and feed in to) a range of different scenarios for the fleet in the future such as changes to the number and type of vans allocated to particular teams and projects.
Pathfinder Enhancements
This project will update the Pathfinder tool to improve functionality and reflect more current underlying data. Use of the tool developed in this project should result in better choices regarding investment in energy saving measures
Commercial Vehicle Fleet – Development of Total Cost of Operation Model
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.
Integrity Management of Hydrogen Pipelines
Existing defect assessments and repair methodologies are aligned with the T/PM/P/11 and T/PM/P/20 management procedures and are adopted to inspect assess and repair the pipelines for defects and take suitable measures to reduce them. However the scope and applicability of the repair techniques in the presence of high-pressure hydrogen remain uncertain. The key questions which form an outline of the project are:
- What are the different types of defects we may encounter or consider injurious in the presence of hydrogen?
- What is the impact of hydrogen on each defect type? Have the mechanisms of failure changed for each defect type after hydrogen-natural gas blending?
- Will the existing repair techniques be applicable under transmission of high-pressure hydrogen and hydrogen-natural gas blends?
- Can we implement the defect assessment inspection and repair methodologies safely? Are the techniques safe and suitable for the pipeline operations and maintenance teams?
The project seeks to answer the above in addition to understanding the types and extent of repairs across the NTS and assess the impact of hydrogen on the effectiveness of these inspection assessment and mitigation technologies.
Reducing Gas Emissions During Pipeline Commissioning
Based on previous work ROSEN Engineers believe the quantity of natural gas vented during commissioning operations can safely be reduced by up to 80% through targeted changes to direct purging procedures.
For Gas Distribution Networks’ (GDNs) gas venting remains a necessary part of normal operations for maintenance or safety purposes. Previous research work undertaken by ROSEN(UK) Limited for the EIC with project partners Northern Gas Networks (NGN) and Wales and West Utilities (WWU) identified activities where venting of natural gas to atmosphere occurs (Gas Venting Research Project NIA reference number NIA_NGN_282)
Assessing Energy Impacts via Thermal Analysis
The project aims to use a vehicle-mounted thermal camera and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect heat loss from homes on a city-wide scale. The data will be used to assess the condition of a property regarding its ability to retain heat and provide tailored recommendations addressing insulation problems. This critical first step allows for better targeting of necessary retrofits and offers a scientifically measured alternative or complementary approach to traditional EPC.
Cominglo – Blended CV Measurement Point
This project seeks to improve the accuracy of CV measurement in gas networks which distribute blended gas streams. Element Digital Engineering will address this by first studying the physics of gas blending in the gas network using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). A wide range of simulations will enable the effects of different designs and mixing technologies to be understood in relation to the various gases under consideration. The predictions of these CFD studies will be validated through the design and development of a rig to simulate blending in the network. The overall results of these studies will be used to develop a tool that can be deployed within the gas networks to facilitate the accurate prediction of co-mingling and subsequent CV measurement points supporting the design of blending systems.