Publications

The study analyses the role of hydrogen in the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) and identifies and highlights opportunities for hydrogen technologies to contribute to effective and efficient achievement of the 2030 climate and energy targets of the EU and its Member States.<br/>The study focuses on the potential and opportunities of renewable hydrogen produced by electrolysers using renewable electricity and of low-carbon hydrogen produced by steam methane reforming combined with CCS. The opportunities for and impacts of hydrogen deployment are assessed and summarised in individual fiches per Member State.<br/>The study analyses to what extent policy measures and industrial initiatives are already being taken to facilitate large-scale implementation of hydrogen in the current and the next decades. The study concludes by determining the CO2 reduction potential beyond what is foreseen in the NECPs through hydrogen energy technologies estimating the reduction of fossil fuel imports and reliance the prospective cost and the value added and jobs created. National teams working on decarbonisation roadmaps and updates of the NECPs are welcome to consider the opportunities and benefits of hydrogen deployment identified in this study.

The efficiency of gas sensor application for facilitating the safe use of hydrogen depends considerably on the sensor response to a change in hydrogen concentration. Therefore the response time has been measured for five different-type commercially available hydrogen sensors. Experiments showed that all these sensors surpass the ISO 26142 standard; for the response times t90 values of 2 s to 16 s were estimated. Results can be fitted with an exponential or sigmoidal function. It can be demonstrated that the results on transient behaviour depend on both the operating parameters of sensors and investigation methods as well as on the experimental conditions: gas change rate and concentration jump.

Egypt has one of the largest economies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and several of its industries are large sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As part of its contribution to mitigate GHG emissions within the framework of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change Egypt is focusing on the development of an ambitious renewable energy programme.

Some of Egypt’s main industries are big consumers of hydrogen which is produced locally using indigenous natural gas without abatement of the CO2 emissions resulting from this production process. In the long-term the production and consumption of this unabated hydrogen known as grey hydrogen could become a serious challenge for Egypt’s exports of manufactured products. Thus the Egyptian government is planning to develop low carbon hydrogen alternatives and has set up an inter-ministerial committee to prepare a national hydrogen strategy for Egypt.

This paper explores the prospects for low carbon hydrogen (blue and green hydrogen) developments in Egypt focusing on the potential replacement of Egypt’s large domestic production of grey hydrogen with cleaner low carbon hydrogen alternatives.

The research paper can be found on their website

Most experimental investigations of underexpanded hydrogen jets have been limited to circular nozzles in an attempt to better understand the fundamental jet-exit flow physics and model this behaviour with pseudo source models. However realistic compressed storage leak exit geometries are not always expected to be circular. In the present study jet dispersion characteristics from rectangular slot nozzles with aspect ratios from 2 to 8 were investigated and compared with an equivalent circular nozzle. Schlieren imaging was used to observe the jet-exit shock structure while quantitative Planar Laser Rayleigh Scattering was used to measure downstream dispersion characteristics. These results provide physical insight and much needed model validation data for model development.

Metal hydrides are known as a potential efficient low-risk option for high-density hydrogen storage since the late 1970s. In this paper the present status and the future perspectives of the use of metal hydrides for hydrogen storage are discussed. Since the early 1990s interstitial metal hydrides are known as base materials for Ni – metal hydride rechargeable batteries. For hydrogen storage metal hydride systems have been developed in the 2010s [1] for use in emergency or backup power units i. e. for stationary applications.<br/>With the development and completion of the first submarines of the U212 A series by HDW (now Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems) in 2003 and its export class U214 in 2004 the use of metal hydrides for hydrogen storage in mobile applications has been established with new application fields coming into focus.<br/>In the last decades a huge number of new intermetallic and partially covalent hydrogen absorbing compounds has been identified and partly more partly less extensively characterized.<br/>In addition based on the thermodynamic properties of metal hydrides this class of materials gives the opportunity to develop a new hydrogen compression technology. They allow the direct conversion from thermal energy into the compression of hydrogen gas without the need of any moving parts. Such compressors have been developed and are nowadays commercially available for pressures up to 200 bar. Metal hydride based compressors for higher pressures are under development. Moreover storage systems consisting of the combination of metal hydrides and high-pressure vessels have been proposed as a realistic solution for on-board hydrogen storage on fuel cell vehicles.<br/>In the frame of the “Hydrogen Storage Systems for Mobile and Stationary Applications” Group in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Hydrogen Task 32 “Hydrogen-based energy storage” different compounds have been and will be scaled-up in the near future and tested in the range of 500 g to several hundred kg for use in hydrogen storage applications.

The HYPER project a specific targeted research project (STREP) funded by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme developed an Installation Permitting Guide (IPG) for hydrogen and fuel cell stationary applications. The IPG was developed in response to the growing need for guidance to foster the use and facilitate installation of these systems in Europe. This document presents a modified version of the IPG specifically intended for the UK market. For example reference is made to UK national regulations standards and practices when appropriate as opposed to European ones.<br/>The IPG applies to stationary systems fuelled by hydrogen incorporating fuel cell devices with net electrical output of up to 10 kWel and with total power outputs of the order of 50 kW (combined heat + electrical) suitable for small back up power supplies residential heating combined heat-power (CHP) and small storage systems. Many of the guidelines appropriate for these small systems will also apply to systems up to 100 kWel which will serve small communities or groups of households. The document is not a standard but is a compendium of useful information for a variety of users with a role in installing these systems including design engineers manufacturers architects installers operators/maintenance workers and regulators.<br/>This report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy.

Britain stands on the cusp of a world-leading hydrogen revolution and one which we are almost uniquely positioned to take advantage of. With an extensive world-leading gas grid huge amounts of offshore wind resource and liquid energy markets there are few other places as well positioned as the UK to lead the international race to build a hydrogen economy. Published as part of Energy Networks Association’s Gas Goes Green programme Britain’s Hydrogen Network Plan will play a vital role in delivering the UK’s ambitions for hydrogen as set out in the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan For A Green Industrial Revolution.<br/>This Plan sets out how Britain’s gas network companies will enable 100% hydrogen to be transported for use in different sectors of the UK economy. It also identifies the wider actions needed to provide hydrogen production and storage showing how transitioning the gas networks to hydrogen will allow hydrogen to play a full role in achieving net zero in the hard to decarbonise sectors such as industry heavy transport and domestic heating saving an estimated 40 million tonnes of CO2 emissions every year. All five of Britain’s gas network companies responsible for owning and operating £24bn of critical national energy infrastructure are committing through this Plan to delivering this work. It forms a key part of their ambition to building the world’s first zero carbon gas grid here in the UK.<br/>Britain’s Hydrogen Network Plan is founded on four tenets that will underpin the role of Britain’s gas network infrastructure in a hydrogen economy. These tenets reflect the breadth and scale of the impact that the transformation of our gas networks will have. They will guide how gas network companies ensure people’s safety in a fast moving and changing energy system. They reflect how the companies will maintain security of supply to our homes and businesses as we move away from the natural gas that has been the bedrock of our energy system for half a century. They will support the public’s ability to choose the right technology so households and businesses can choose the low carbon technologies that are best suited to their needs. And they will deliver jobs and investment so the transition of our gas networks has a lasting and enduring economic impact in communities across the country.<br/>As we look to the future the exciting role that hydrogen has to play in delivering a net zero economy is becoming increasingly clear. We look forward to working closely with the customers we serve the Government and the wider energy industry to turn that ambition into reality.

Hydrogen gas concentrations and jet velocities were measured downstream by a high response speed flame ionization detector and PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) in order to investigate the characteristics of dispersion and ignitability for 40–82 MPa high-pressurized hydrogen jet discharged from a nozzle with 0.2 mm diameter. The light emitted from both OH radical and water vapor species yielded from hydrogen combustion ignited by an electric spark were recorded by two high speed cameras. From the results the empirical formula concerning the relationships for time-averaged concentrations concentration fluctuations and ignition probability were obtained to suggest that they would be independent of hydrogen discharge pressure.

With the development of the hydrogen economy it requires a better understanding of the potential for fires and explosions associated with the unintended release of hydrogen within a partially confined space. In order to mitigate the hydrogen fire and explosion risks effectively accurate predictions of the hydrogen transport and mixing processes are crucial. It is well known that turbulence modelling is one of the key elements for a successful simulation of gas mixing and transport. GASFLOW-MPI is a scalable CFD software solution used to predict fluid dynamics conjugate heat and mass transfer chemical kinetics aerosol transportation and other related phenomena. In order to capture more turbulence information the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model and LES/RANS hybrid model Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) have been implemented and validated in 3-D CFD code GASFLOW-MPI. The standard Smagorisky SGS model is utilized in LES turbulence model. And the k-epsilon based DES model is employed. This paper assesses the capability of algebraic k-epsilon DES and LES turbulence model to simulate the mixing and transport behavior of highly buoyant gases in a partially confined geometry. Simulation results agree well with the overall trend measured in experiments conducted in a reduced scale enclosure with idealized leaks which shows that all these four turbulent models are validated and suitable for the simulation of light gas behavior. Furthermore the numerical results also indicate that the LES and DES model could be used to analysis the turbulence behavior in the hydrogen safety problems.

Energy transition is a part of a much wider Grand Transition which is not all about energy. Energy transition cannot be achieved all at once or by any one actor. Relying only on better energy modelling and forecasting to guide successful transition will be fatal even in a data-rich era.<br/>It is timely for energy leaders to ask:<br/>Are global energy scenarios achieving their potential in opening up action on new energy futures?<br/>How do the Council’s World Energy Scenarios compare with global energy outlooks scenarios and normative visions used by others and what can we learn by contrasting the increasing richness of energy futures thinking?<br/>In anticipation of the 24th World Energy Congress the Council is refreshing its global energy foresight and updating its global scenarios narratives. The focus is on an ‘innovation twist to 2040’ and the use of scenarios to explore and navigate new exponential growth opportunities for accelerating successful energy transition in an era of epic and disruptive innovation.<br/>As a part of the refresh the Council has conducted a comparison study of global energy scenarios in order to test the continued plausibility relevance and challenge of its own existing scenario set the World Energy Scenarios 2016 launched at the 23rd World Energy Congress in Istanbul in 2016.<br/>By comparing the methods narratives and assumptions associated with a benchmarkable set of global energy futures initiatives and studies the Council seeks to provide our members with clearer understanding and new insights on energy transition while preparing them to better engage with leadership dialogues which pivot on visions of a new energy future.<br/>The review also provides an opportunity to reflect on the challenges and obstacles for utilising global energy scenarios to drive impact and the challenges in bridging agile and flexible qualitative storytelling with long term quantitative energy modelling."