(Eat) - Eon is converting an existing public gas pipeline to pure hydrogen. This is happening “for the first time in Germany,” said the company about its project in Holzwickede, North Rhine-Westphalia, east of Dortmund. This is linked to a research project called “H2HoWi”: Scientific support should, among other things, confirm “that the hydrogen has no influence on the pipe material structure and the tightness of the existing infrastructure”.
Storage of the future
There is currently a technical standard in Germany that limits the addition of hydrogen to the natural gas network to a maximum of ten percent. A higher admixture has already been tried out in isolated cases. With the project that has now started, Eon subsidiary Westnetz GmbH wants to examine whether the existing infrastructure can be used for pure hydrogen. “Upgrading the existing gas network infrastructure for hydrogen is an important prerequisite for the success of the energy transition,” explains Eon network board member Thomas König. By converting green electricity into hydrogen, renewable energy can be stored in gas networks. Eon has set itself the goal of “mixing green gases with natural gas in the distribution networks and offering a supply of 100 percent hydrogen if necessary.”
In the “H2HoWi” project, an existing medium-pressure natural gas pipeline in Holzwickede is first separated from the natural gas network and then connected to a hydrogen storage facility. From here, four commercial customers are supplied, who use the hydrogen to generate space heat. For this purpose, hydrogen-compatible condensing boilers from Remeha will be installed on site.
Westnetz GmbH is building the project and will manage it until the end of 2023. Construction work will start in November 2020. The investment volume is around one million euros.
“Hydrogen network parallel to the existing gas network”
There are currently individual networks that are operated by hydrogen producers, such as a network in the Ruhr area operated by Air Liquide and a network in eastern Germany operated by Linde AG, according to an inventory by the Federal Network Agency that was published in July 2020.
Based on current knowledge, the authority considers “a large-scale addition of hydrogen to the gas network” to be unlikely. On the one hand, many end devices are “sensitive to an increase in hydrogen admixture quotas” and a great deal of adjustment would be necessary. On the other hand, consumers will continue to need pure hydrogen and pure natural gas in the future. “A hydrogen network structure will probably develop parallel to the existing gas network, largely based on repurposed and converted natural gas pipelines,” says the report.
Regulation of hydrogen networks. An inventory of the Federal Network Agency (as of July 2020)
https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sachgebiete/Energie/Unternehmen_Institutionen/NetzentwicklungUndSmartGrid/Wasserstoff/Wasserstoffpapier.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2
Photos
Westnetz is testing the conversion from natural gas to hydrogen in Holzwickede / © Eon
