When I (Mike) was working at NREL and starting to piece together a group of stakeholders to discuss hydrogen blending in the natural gas network. The task was handed to me by someone that knew hydrogen blending was going to be a hot topic within the industry but didn’t know enough not to put me in charge of such an important initiative.

It Ramped Up Fast

Started with a few initial conversations (shoutout Devinder and Tim! Should probably reach out before I put your names in a blog post… anarchy), that scaled quickly to monthly group meetings and bringing more and more industry folks into the conversation. Next thing we know, DOE is getting involved, we are holding webinars, a funding opportunity presents itself, and DOE’s HyBlend initiative is off and running. I am not joking when I say it ramped up fast. I had worked in renewable electrolysis, hydrogen fueling stations, and was part of a team working medium- and heavy-duty fast filling and modeling – nothing compared to the interest folks had in hydrogen blending. I was averaging 2 – 3 introductory calls a week for 6-months+ with companies that wanted to join HyBlend. I had to set a deadline for when people could join. The interest in hydrogen blending was CRAZY… but, why?

An Easy Entry Point into Hydrogen

The simplest answer is often the right answer. If you were a utility that has electricity and gas assets, then your organization dropped net zero goals on you – what would you look towards? First, likely large solar and wind projects. Next, short term energy storage projects like coupling batteries with wind and solar. Okay, we haven’t reached net zero goals – now what? That is where we were during 2019. The “now what?” stage for a lot of energy companies.

Enter Hydrogen

I mean why wouldn’t it enter the picture? If I had access to renewable, cheap electrons I would solve much of the value proposition for hydrogen production through electrolysis. The other part of that equation is where should I put (read: sell) the hydrogen? Well, if I have natural gas pipelines – put it in there and call it a day… As my three-year-old says, “easy peazy lemon squeezy”.

Not So Fast

If it were only that simple. When you are adding hydrogen to a natural gas pipeline you need to have significant considerations aimed towards the effects of hydrogen on the infrastructure: material, age, condition, and balance-of-plant are all significant considerations that must be addressed when looking to blend hydrogen. On top of that, the end-use equipment that may see that blended product must be evaluated as well. This is what HyBlend and other initiatives are helping to solve. Seriously, go check out the results from that project, they are fantastic. This isn’t even a shameless plug… I bailed on them after the contract was signed – just genuinely good results from that group.

Blending opens the door AND can help you scale – here is the great part. For your system, if you can solve the issues around material compatibility, age of the infrastructure, and other factors related to blending then you will have something quite special. Hydrogen blending opens the door to the hydrogen market, but it isn’t an end goal. It never has been. If your ambition is to blend 20% H2 into your NG network to get a 7% reduction on your overall Carbon Intensity (CI), then you need a grander ambition!

That low CI hydrogen you generated, that is worth a lot in its pure form on the open market, especially today… Like a lot. If you can get approval to build a hydrogen production facility for blending, then once that facility comes online you should do everything in your power not to blend that hydrogen. Fill tube trailers and sell H2 to industrials, find a logistics center with forklifts, work with a local bus company on establishing consistent supply. The way you structure a blending agreement matters – don’t get stuck with a need to constantly supply the pipeline. The pipeline is the backup, blending is the backup, any other application is the money, the “green” (or gold or pink or blue or whatever color scheme we are debating in H2 today).

Blending gets you into the hydrogen market. Setting up variable injection agreements allows you to start participating in other parts of the end-use equation. More demand in other markets allows you to continue scaling your hydrogen production… So, to the question of whether you should produce hydrogen and blend it into the natural gas network; we say “yes” but make sure you are smart enough to never do it…

As always – stick around, things could get interesting.

Credit: The article image was created with the use of A.I., specifically OpenAI’s DALL-E platform. Main author is Mike Peters with proof reading and editing provided by the broader IQ4H2 team.