Hydrogen Ready and Hydrogen Blend Ready Gas Boilers
THE FUTURE OF HEATING OUR HOMES
Worcester Bosch and other premium gas boiler manufacturers are working hard, developing heating solutions to help us all reduce our carbon footprint. In fact, most new boilers already support a blend of hydrogen and natural gas!
Hydrogen vs natural gas boilers
It's important to clear up a few misconceptions about the future of gas fuelled boilers.
There’s some speculation on the future validity of Natural Gas boilers doing the rounds in the press and social media.
Understandably, this is creating quite a bit of confusion with customers who may have just purchased a new boiler or are considering upgrading an existing boiler.
To be clear, your gas boiler or future gas boiler WILL NOT BE BANNED IN 2025. Most current modern Natural Gas boilers can actually run on a ‘blend’ of Hydrogen and Natural Gas already. Buying a new Gas powered boiler now is not a poor investment and we can assure our customers it will not be obsolete in the near future.
Why do we need Hydrogen boilers?
Most UK households use carbon producing natural gas or oil to provide heat and hot water.
This fact is making the Government’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions significantly harder to achieve as over one third of our green house gases come from our homes.
Completely replacing our energy infrastructure is a mammoth task and would create even more carbon emissions in the process. The solution is to find a carbon-neutral option that could possibly work with our current infrastructure. This is where hydrogen gas could step in.
In a hydrogen powered boiler, hydrogen reacts with the oxygen in the atmosphere to produce the heat we need and just water (H2) as a by product. Hydrogen is a carbon neutral energy source when used in boilers and may be the solution to helping us reduce our emissions at a household level and ultimately help reverse climate change.
What are Hydrogen Bend Ready boilers?
Most modern gas boilers are Hydrogen Blend Ready out of the box!
All our recommended Worcester Bosch combi boilers are Hydrogen Blend Ready and may be adapted in the future ( at a small cost ) to become Hydrogen Ready boilers.
Worcester’s Hydrogen Blend Ready boilers have 2 different output settings, and can currently run on a 20% hydrogen / 80% natural gas mix out of the box. They are ready to change over to function on 100% hydrogen when the time comes. So buying a new, modern combi boiler from a company like Worcester Bosch is a good choice now and protects your investment ready for when our gas infrastructure moves over to clean, carbon-neutral hydrogen gas.
Hydrogen boiler common questions
What is a Hydrogen Ready boiler?
A Hydrogen Ready boiler is similar to a regular gas boiler. However, it is calibrated to either use 100% hydrogen, natural gas, or a mixture of both. Burning 100% hydrogen gas in a boiler is very bit as efficient as natural gas and releases zero carbon emissions.
What is a Hydrogen Blend Ready boiler?
Most modern gas boilers are "Hydrogen Blend Ready", which means they can already burn up to 20% hydrogen gas in the fuel mix. If you have had a new boiler installed in the last 8 years or so, it's probably Hydrogen Blend Ready!
Can you buy a Hydrogen Ready boiler today?
As of 2021, Hydrogen Ready boilers are still in the testing stage. Worcester Bosch and other manufacturers are working hard on this and are currently running real-world tests in chosen areas of the UK. The general consensus is that Hydrogen Ready boilers will be at the stage of consumer roll-out by 2025. This timeframe would go hand in hand with the Government's proposed natural gas boiler ban on new build properties (only) from then.
How will Hydrogen Ready boilers work?
Hydrogen Ready boilers will work in a similar way to a regular condensing natural gas boiler. There are a few differences but essentially they function in the same way. Worcester Bosch suggests that converting a regular natural gas boiler to Hydrogen could be possible for the most recently made condensing gas boilers. In addition, a hydrogen Ready boiler could use natural gas or a mixture of gas and Hydrogen until the supply infrastructure moves to 100% Hydrogen.
Hydrogen Ready boiler pros & cons
Hydrogen Ready boilers will vastly reduce our carbon emissions - but there's still work to be done
No carbon emissions when burning
Using Hydrogen for heat does not produce any carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and pollution levels. The byproduct of burning hydrogen when mixed with air is simply water. Hydrogen is also a non-toxic gas.
Essentially a renewable energy source
Unlike natural gas that derived from finite fossil fuels, Hydrogen can be produced in a number of ways - some of which are 100% renewable. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and as new technologies are developed to acquire and store it effectively, things can only get better
Higher energy density than Natural gas
Hydrogen outputs more energy as heat compared to the equivalent amount of natural gas. It's approximately 2.8x more efficient at doing this. This means 100% Hydrogen fired boilers will use significantly less gas per volume to produce the same amount of heat energy.
Work with our existing gas infrastructure
As Hydrogen essentially behaves like natural gas it will work well with our national pipelines already in place. It just needs to change at the source. At household level, there's less disruption and need to make big changes to how our home heating systems work. All that's needed is a new Hydrogen Ready boiler or a modified version of your current boiler if that's an option.
Producing Hydrogen can create carbon emissions
Using Hydrogen for heat does not produce any carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and pollution levels. The byproduct of burning hydrogen when mixed with air is simply water. Hydrogen is also a non-toxic gas.
Hydrogen is difficult to store
Hydrogen is the simplest, smallest element with the atomic number of 1. Even though it's the most abundant element in the universe when in gaseous form, its small size makes it really hard to store permanently without some leakage. To avoid this issue, Hydrogen is usually stored under high pressure as a liquid at super low temperatures, which requires energy for refrigeration. So although Hydrogen has huge benefits over natural gas, its storage and deployment isn't one of them.
Hydrogen is expensive to make
To produce Hydrogen in significant quantities for home heating is expensive using current technologies. The most popular method of producing Hydrogen in large quantities is by steam reforming. This uses carbon based gases like methane which contribute to climate change. The carbon release needs to be captured or controlled during the reforming process which is expensive. Another popular method of producing Hydrogen is by electrolysis. This process breaks up water (H2) into is elemental constituents of Oxygen (O) and Hydrogen (H2). This requires significant electrical energy to break these molecules up at an industrial level.
Hydrogen is very flammable & hard to detect
Unlike natural gas which has an artificial odour added, Hydrogen has no smell so it is harder to detect leaks without relying on meters or detectors. There are odourants that can be added to Hydrogen to make leaks more detectable. However, currently this has not been considered. Also, Hydrogen is arguably more explosive than natural gas under certain oxygen rich conditions. Extra care and precautions need to be taken when storing large amounts of hydrogen.
Hydrogen boilers in the press
The UK’s first Hydrogen Homes – Worcester Bosch Showcase Homes
Read the article on the Elemental website.
In face of soaring energy prices, UK Government urged to reconsider support for blue hydrogen
Read the article on the edie website.
BP flags huge green hydrogen plan as oil giant joins Dutch offshore wind bidding race
Read the full article on the Recharge website.
Andrex maker to power toilet paper factory with hydrogen as gas prices soar
Read the full article on the Telegraph website.
Baxi calls for government to put £1bn into hydrogen infrastructure
Read the article on the H&V website.
Is the UK Switching to Hydrogen Boilers?
Read the article on the deadline website.
ABP plans large-scale UK green hydrogen facility
Read the article on the reNews.biz website.
Report concludes hydrogen boilers can be made just as safe as those using gas
Read the article on the Mirror website.
RW Thomas is committed to supporting Hydrogen & other carbon reducing and carbon neutral home heating solutions.
Get in touch if you have any questions about efficiently heating your home.
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