As part of the future conversion of the NGN gas network to hydrogen, research is required into the current proposed options on the production and national transmission of hydrogen and how it will be imported to the NGN Local Transmission System (LTS).
This project will build upon the initial research undertaken in the NGN H21 North of England (NoE) Report which discusses the reuse of the National Transmission Systems (NTS), Local Transmission Systems (LTS) and a new Hydrogen Transmission System (HTS) for transmission of hydrogen. Since the NoE report there have been several further projects assessing the various ways in which hydrogen can be delivered to the LTS network. This project will look at this information and review how this will impact on the conversion planning strategy for NGN customers and make recommendations to include in future conversion planning.
Since the NoE report, the conversion process has been reviewed in more detail and the conversion of the NTS/LTS over to hydrogen needs researching further. The current thinking on converting the NTS/LTS over to hydrogen is expected to not fully align with the requirements for staged conversion and still being able to supply natural gas to customers awaiting conversion.
Currently the natural gas NGN distributes is supplied to the NGN LTS via the National Grid NTS high pressure system. The gas is generally taken at high pressure and reduced through pressure reduction to around 7 bar.
NGN do not currently have a confirmed source of hydrogen that can be imported into the LTS and used for the conversion. There are several NIC/NIA projects being undertaken by other stakeholders researching the best way to deliver hydrogen to the areas where it will be needed, including via the NTS, but these projects have various differing solutions which have a differing impact on the potential conversion strategies.
This project will need to look at the various NIA/NIC projects that are researching the issue of providing hydrogen to LTS networks and assess how that best fits with NGNs exiting network & requirements and the consequences this could causes to the future planning of the conversion process.
