Camilo A. Lozano | MEL Candidate | Dec 16, 2022
Mentors: Mehmud Iqbal, Fortis BC
Abstract
In 1874, the great visionary Jules Verne wrote in The Mysterious Island “water will one day be employed as a fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen that constitute it, used singly or together”. Almost one hundred years later, in 1969 the Apollo 11 mission relied on hydrogen fuel cells to supply electricity and water for the mission, as well as liquid hydrogen to power the rockets. As a decarbonized energy vector, hydrogen can serve as a valuable short-term tool to address a growing demand for hydrogen, drive down generation, storage, and distribution costs, and provide a sustainable long-term strategy for decarbonizing ‘difficult-to-electrify’ end uses.
Blending hydrogen into gas networks will have the advantage of reaching a wide range of energy consumers and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, introducing natural gas-hydrogen blends to an installed population of domestic natural gas appliances necessarily implies changes and risks in different dimensions. The purpose of this research project is to explore the current state of the art of blending hydrogen into the gas networks in the different dimensions that this change introduce into the way that end-users consumes gas natural and how affects domestic gas appliances at the point of use. The research asses a broad and extensive literature research in technical performance, current status of the standards and regulations, and appliances manufacturers to compare not only their capabilities but availability in Canadian market. Each of this concepts will be framed in a key concept in natural gas uses which is gas interchangeability and GHG emissions.