Wales & West Utilities is launching a low carbon hydrogen production trial which uses wastewater.
The feasibility study will explore how using less pure water, primarily harvested rainwater, could lower operational barriers and reduce costs for green hydrogen production.
Green hydrogen is primarily produced through electrolysis, which usually requires purified water and green electricity.
For the trial, Wales & West Utilities has partnered with hydrogen specialists Hydrostar to look at features of a low carbon electrolyser system, which requires a lower quality of water to produce the same green hydrogen.
The project’s backers claim that it could deliver cost savings to customers as well as significant carbon and water savings.
Matt Hindle, head of net zero and sustainability at Wales & West Utilities, said: “Low carbon hydrogen is essential to decarbonise gas users across the UK – so it’s important that we have access to a range of production technologies.
“We are keen to explore how electrolyser systems can use lower quality water to produce green hydrogen – potentially increasing efficiency and opening new opportunities and areas for development. This technology has huge potential to support our plans to transport low carbon hydrogen to our customers in the south west of England and Wales.”
The project will run until June 2023. It is being funded by Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF). Earlier this month, Ofgem collectively awarded 53 projects more than £6 million in the latest round of its SIF which is run jointly with Innovate UK.
The SIF is a five-year scheme which was launched in 2021 and it is designed to fund innovative projects by gas and electricity networks which contribute to net zero, while delivering net benefits to their customers. It is expected to invest £450 million by 2026.
Last year Ofgem set four key challenges as part of round two of the SIF; supporting a just energy transition, preparing for a net zero power system, improving energy system resilience and robustness, and accelerating decarbonisation of major energy demands.
Wales & West is not the first utilities firm to look at using wastewater for hydrogen production. In 2021, Severn Trent set out plans to scale up a successful trial of hydrogen production from wastewater using carbon fibre mats developed by researchers at the University of Warwick.
The trial was scaled up at Severn Trent’s largest sewage processing plant at Minworth where the carbon fibre mats removed 51% of organic pollutants and up to 100% of suspended solids while producing 18 times more hydrogen than the graphite mats.