Recap First Results Webinar 30 June

12 juli 2021

On 30 June, a Webinar was held to share the first results of the HyDelta project. About 200 people attended the webinar to learn more about the progress of the project in its first six months. In this recap you will find the full webinar to watch it once again, the presentation and Q&A’s collected from the audience during the webinar.

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Q&A’s First Results Webinar

Is there a view that Hydrogen generation capability will enable full replacement of Natural Gas?

Difficult to prognose as of now because not everything in the energy system can be converted to hydrogen. The plan is to replace fossil fuels to the extent of the ambitions by the EU and the individual governments.

What are the maximum velocity and H2 purity considered during this study?

The purity considered for the purpose of WP1E is 100% H2. The maximum flow velocity is 60-70 m/s depending on what part of the system you are looking at. Anywhere between 2.8 and 3.5 times the “typical” flow velocities of natural gas.

What flowmeters are currently used by electrolyser H2 product?

It will depend on the pressure and flow of the electrolyser. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with this application.

How is HyDelta funded? Is it a government funded project?

50% funded by the National Dutch Government and 50% by Gasunie and Netbeheer Nederland.

Many research questions (safety, velocity,…) seem not limited to the Netherlands. How is the international connection managed?

Since this is a short project (<18 months), we chose to tackle first the most urgent questions related to NL. Furthermore, we have ongoing collaborations with projects in the US, the UK, and Germany, and are planning to expand our sphere of collaborations. We are actively engaging in discussions with potential partners and collaborators across Europe and internationally, partly because our project reports will be open to the public so we are disseminating the results to as many relevant stakeholders as possible.

Are rotorary and turbine meters included in the scope?

The scope is meters for small consumers. In NL that means up to 40 m3/h. Since there are few rotary meters and no turbine meters in this class, we do not focus on these.

Why is the scope limited to valves in the TSO grid? Because of the higher pressures than in the DSO grid?

The measurements are (now) limited to valves in the TSO grid. The scope is valves < 16 bar. The aim is 1) to find a releation between leakages of natural gas and hydrogen and 2) to develop a method for measuring the leakage of existing (ball) valves in use.

Do I understand correctly that your assessments includes the impact of higher velocities all the way from the TSO network to distribution to houses?

Thanks for your feedback and question. Yes, for the purpose of the integrity issues scoped, we stop at the home flow meter, but look only at those issues relevant at each segment of the system.

We learned from a control supplier that the higher velocity was in their controller no problem for sound. But that a lower velocity their where problems with noise due to the “eigen frequentie”, this might lead to noise generation, vibration and break down. My point also look at low speed because of the lower rho.

I do not know exactly what aspect is at stake here, but it looks like your supplier is more concerned about acoustic-mechanical natural frequency coincidence at low frequencies (low velocity) than at high frequencies (high velocity). I will be in contact to have a discussion on this, thank you very uch for bringing it up.

For fuel cells their should be a filter for other contamination in the distribution grid. In the GTS grid the gas will be clean i presume but in a distribution grid there wil be ground, water etc. Is it by a scale up of fuel cells this expensive to filter the sulpher? In this way we can have the benefits of the THT and work with fuel cells.

The filters for WP1B specifically focuses on natural gas grids in gasstations. Fuel cells are not in any way part of WP1B.

We at Liander have serious doubts whether filters are needed for natural gas. It might be a heritage from the towngas and they are still built, Should it be considered to remove them totally because no use?

In view of dust accidents in the national grids, the filters are mainly there to safeguard the gas to be clean. In normal operation, the gas is expected to be clean but when H2 flowing through our network in the future, the gas might be able to move old dust. This is the main reason for the investigation. If gas flows at higher velocities, will it be possible that it moves more dust as well.

In the Hyway27 report with is not yet dismissed GTS is aiming at 50 bar as a maximum for the back bone?

That is indeed the case: GTS is thinking of a pressure range 30-50 bar.

The dust risk, this is a one-time event ? Untill the dust is gathered, then the problem is gone?

We expect that every meter has a dust filter built in, as now is the case with ultrasonic meters. When strong fluctuations of flow in a gas grid occur, there is always a risk of dragging dust along with the stream, also with hydrogen.

When you are talking about Ultrasonic and Thermal Mass Flo meters for Hydrogen, do you then cover also blends of NG and H2?

The meters we surveyed so far are designed for only >98% H2 as fluid. But one of them can be switched from natural gas to hydrogen (and back).