Wales & West Utilities (WWU) is leading a project with industry leaders to accelerate the generation and use of green hydrogen on industrial sites.
With funding secured from Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund, WWU has linked up with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, Yeo Valley and Hydrostar to establish green hydrogen generation demonstrator projects on industrial sites in south Wales and the south west of England.
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water will install a 100% hydrogen boiler at one of its biggest wastewater treatment works on Rover Way in Cardiff, providing both heat and hot water, showing how hydrogen can replace natural gas, making use of existing gas network infrastructure. It will also demonstrate how renewable electricity from solar panels can offer a self-sufficient power source to large buildings.
Yeo Valley, meanwhile, is set to introduce a 20% hydrogen blend to its existing natural gas boiler at its 60-acre Cannington site. The wastewater from its industrial processes will be used as feedstock for the electrolyser, with excess oxygen used in the water treatment process. This will result in a closed-loop solution, enhancing environmental and financial benefits. It will also, like Welsh Water’s project, use renewable energy from solar as a power source.
These projects form the latest stage of the NextGen Electrolysis: Wastewater to Green Hydrogen programme. The previous two phases saw a new technique to produce low carbon hydrogen from wastewater sources explored, leading to 94% purity green hydrogen being produced from nine different wastewater sources. The research team were able to demonstrate a reduction in operational constraints and customer costs in the widescale uptake of low carbon hydrogen.
