Will shift from gas to hydrogen make heating more efficient?

The UK government has publicly submitted a series of proposals for more efficient residential heating, one of which seeks to introduce requirements for all newly installed gas boilers to be “hydrogen-ready” from 2026.

By Nick Lavigueur

The UK government has publicly submitted a series of proposals for more efficient residential heating, one of which seeks to introduce requirements for all newly installed gas boilers to be “hydrogen-ready” from 2026.

The conversion of the gas network to supply hydrogen instead of methane, could of course impact the fireplace sector, both in that it will affect the technology and potentially also the propensity of people to continue to purchase real flame fires over other modes of home heating and cooking.

The appeal of hydrogen, unlike fossil fuels, is that it doesn’t give off CO2 when it burns, leading to hopes it could play a key role in decarbonising the economy. .

In the recently closed Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) consultation on the matter, it says: “The government’s view is that there is a strong case for the introduction of hydrogen-ready boilers as standard from this date, provided that these boilers can meet all relevant regulatory standards, that they can reach price parity with existing gas boilers if deployed market wide, and assuming that a single market-wide definition can be agreed. “Hydrogen-ready boilers are boilers that are initially installed to burn natural gas but can be easily converted by a gas engineer in future to operate on hydrogen. The deployment of hydrogen-ready boilers from the mid-2020s is expected to deliver significant benefits should hydrogen later be rolled-out in the gas grid, by reducing the costs associated with scrapping natural gas-only boilers before the end of their useful life.”

Five hydrogen heating trials are underway across Britain, all in partnership with major players in the gas sector. But while the powers-thatbe and big business are currently championing hydrogen as the solution to our Net Zero aims, there’s no shortage of dissenters.

Although it may be a less polluting fuel, the problem lies in its creation, scientists have found. As things stand, most hydrogen is manufactured using fossil fuels (referred to as grey hydrogen), a process which is more polluting than just using methane gas.

To produce “green” hydrogen an expensive and inefficient process of electrolysing water using renewable energy sources is the only way.

Generating electricity from wind or solar, converting it into hydrogen and then burning the hydrogen at home uses more energy than just using the electricity to directly heat a home, with a heat pump, it is claimed.

On the flip side, it is claimed that adding only small amounts of hydrogen into the current gas would make a huge difference. In the UK, only a 0.1% hydrogen blend is currently permitted to be included in the natural gas mix supplied to homes, businesses and industry.

One of the hydrogen blending trials taking place is FutureGrid – a specially-constructed hydrogen research facility that will test the feasibility of hydrogen blends at increasing concentrations up to 100% on gas transmission assets.

FutureGrid - which is financed by global players in the fossil fuel industry, says that it estimates that hydrogen blending could have the same carbon-saving effect annually as taking two million cars off the road.

This has encouraged the Energy Networks Association (ENA) to back hydrogen blending plans across the UK. It’s expected necessary upgrades to the UK’s national transmission system could deliver a 2% blend by 2024 and a 20% blend by 2027.

So with a turbulent political landscape ahead both domestically and internationally, it’s hard to predict with great confidence which way this will go.