Hydrogen Boilers

Robin9

AIUT - from 2025 no new gas boilers are to be installed and by 2050 we will have to rip out any remaining units.

New boilers will have to be powered by Hydrogen - do we take a backward step and have to buy Hydrogen in canisters like we do with Calor ?

D_M_E

Hydrogen cyclinders I believe are currently available from the likes of Air Products or whatever they are called these days, and they are heavy.

Could be that every property fitted with a hydrogen boiler will also have an electrolysis unit as well to extract the hydrogen from water, and use the separated hydrogen/oxygen mix as fuel for the boiler.

Robin9

There's not much room in modern houses for cylinders - I grew up in the 1950's with two (one on, one standby) calor cylinders and they had a cupboard all to themselves.

How big might a electrolysis unit be ?

Eye_Wash

Robin9 wrote: »

AIUT - from 2025 no new gas boilers are to be installed and by 2050 we will have to rip out any remaining units.

New boilers will have to be powered by Hydrogen - do we take a backward step and have to buy Hydrogen in canisters like we do with Calor ?

Presumably the gas pipes we use today that transport primarily methane to our homes, that formally transported town gas to our homes (a mixture mainly of hydrogen , methane & carbon monoxide) can be used to transport hydrogen to our homes.

Robin9

Eye_Wash wrote: »

Presumably the gas pipes we use today that transport primarily methane to our homes, that formally transported town gas to our homes (a mixture mainly of hydrogen , methane & carbon monoxide) can be used to transport hydrogen to our homes.

Can you imagine the challenge in having natural gas one day and hydrogen the next and an estate of 200 houses?

Eye_Wash

Robin9 wrote: »

Can you imagine the challenge in having natural gas one day and hydrogen the next and an estate of 200 houses?

Can you imagine the challenge in having town gas one day and natural gas the next and an estate of 200 houses?

Most, if not all, existing gas boilers could actually run on hyrdrogen today, although I doubt many gas boilers today will be around in 30 years time even if there was no change.

#HyDeploy2

D_M_E

Makes you wonder how the hydrogen will be generated, and also if domestic boilers are going to be banned, what about the gas boilers - which are a thousand or more times the size of domestic ones - which are currently used in power stations to provide the steam to turn the generators providing electrical energy, will they nalso be replaced at end of life?

Wonder if the powers that be are looking at the setup on the Scottish island - the name escapes me at the moment - which uses wind energy to do the electrolysis and bottle the hydrogen and some bright spark wants to introduce it throughout the country.

Could be another ill-thought costly government enterprise which we all end up paying for.

daveyjp

The current proposal is to build hydrogen production facilities and use the existing mains gas network.

Just as when mains gas replaced town gas changes will be needed to gas appliances.

Robin9

What about commercial set ups ? Domestic boiler are about 30kw - Commercial 250Kw ?

daveyjp

Robin9 wrote: »

What about commercial set ups ? Domestic boiler are about 30kw - Commercial 250Kw ?

Commercial premises are supplied by mains methane, they will therefore be supplied with mains hydrogen.

Robin9

daveyjp wrote: »

Commercial premises are supplied by mains methane, they will therefore be supplied with mains hydrogen.

Really ? - my Church has a 250kw unit supplied by mains gas