Cadent has pledged that if its Whitby hydrogen village pilot is chosen to go ahead, residents will be offered the choice to take part or remain on natural gas.
This major concession follows concerns raised during customer engagement about people being “forced” to have hydrogen fed into their home.
It means that Cadent will no longer offer residents the choice between electrification or hydrogen but will allow them to opt out of the scheme and stay on the traditional gas network. This will be enabled by laying a parallel gas main in Whitby. Hydrogen will be delivered through the existing gas main to properties opting in to the programme, while anyone opting out will receive natural gas through the newly-laid pipe.
Dr Angie Needle, Cadent’s director of strategy, told Utility Week: “We have done all sorts of engagement and the main issue seems to be with the lack of choice. Even though the work we plan to do and the appliances we would fit are all free, ultimately you are asking people to do this outside of their own timeline. We’re still at a stage where we have to bring people along with us on this journey – whether you’re talking about hydrogen, electrification or any other choice. We felt it was the right thing to do to listen to that feedback.”
Needle said this was not necessarily a more expensive approach to delivering the project as it removed the need to fund electric heat appliances as an alternative.
She added: “We will have to dig up the road, yes, but we would have to do that anyway to lay a higher capacity electricity network, so the disruption is similar. And it’s fair to say we have some experience of laying pipes.”
Asked if the chance to opt out of the process undermines the principle of the hydrogen village trial, Needle said: “Obviously the more properties taking part, the more evidence you get – in terms of types of property, incomes etc – and the hope is that the proposition we are putting out is compelling enough to bring a lot of people on board. However, a lot of the evidence we’re creating, and building on from other trials, is about how you convert the network itself. So whether its 400 or 1,000 homes the sectorisation you need to do and the logistics of doing that is still valuable learning.”
Cadent and British Gas’ project in Whitby will compete with a Northern Gas Networks’ proposal in Redcar for the government’s approval. A decision is due in July.
At the start of this month, the government insisted that hydrogen village trials would only go ahead in areas where there is strong public support for them.
Marc Clarke, head of hydrogen customer, at Cadent said: “There has been a broad church of opinions that have come from right across the local community. This input is vitally important to how we shape our plans and submission, and we have always stated that we will only do what is right for the community. We have acted on what we have heard, and we believe we are doing the right thing. We hope that the local community will choose to play their part in this programme, taking advantage of the many benefits on offer as they help us understand the future of heating.”
Tim Green, head of hydrogen customer experience for Whitby at British Gas, said: “Delivering what customers want is at the heart of everything we do at British Gas, which is why we support this revised proposal. It gives customers a clear choice and is why we are proud to be partnering with Cadent to deliver this government backed programme in Whitby.”