Nortegas demonstrates that natural gas networks are prepared for decarbonisation with green hydrogen.

Nortegas has successfully completed its H2SAREA project, in which it has tested a blend of 20% hydrogen and 80% natural gas. The company plans to launch a second research project in the near future to study the behaviour of gas networks with 100% green hydrogen. Project findings have shown that current gas networks perform optimally with a blend of 20% hydrogen and 80% natural gas, in contrast with the blend permitted under current legislation, which only allows a maximum 5% hydrogen content in the network. The analyses carried out by Nortegas on its natural gas network show that the networks are designed and scaled to operate correctly with 20% hydrogen. The injection of 20% H2 would mean a reduction of CO2 equivalent to approximately 40-50% of domestic demand for natural gas in Spain, avoiding emissions of 2.8 million tonnes of CO2.

Another aspect to be highlighted, which has been verified during the 12,000 hours of operation of the project, is that the hydrogen does not leak and does not affect the operation of the network. Once the hydrogen has been injected into the natural gas, the gas blend behaves like natural gas in all respects and the hydrogen, regardless of the small size of its molecule, neither leaks nor affects the operation of the network. Tests on leaks, valve operation, the operation of regulation and metering stations, housing regulators, meters and other elements of the gas network, carried out as part of the project, corroborate this. These results confirm that injecting a blend with 20% green hydrogen will maintain the same safety level as the current natural gas network.

In addition, the project has concluded that there is a significant reduction in flue gas emissions of natural gas blended with hydrogen compared to natural gas combustion. In domestic equipment, reductions of 54% in CO, 7% in CO2 and 53% in NOx have been measured wwith a blend of 20% hydrogen in the natural gas.

Source: Nortegas