Set to take place at UCI’s campus, the proposed demonstration is intended to pave the way for establishing a state-wide injection standard for renewable hydrogen in California, US.

H2 View understands, the proposed plans would see UCI use an electrolyser to produce hydrogen to be injected into existing residential, and light commercial equipment, including water heaters, boilers, furnaces, and ovens in academic buildings, student amenities, and housing at its campus.

If approved, blending at the campus could begin in 2024. Set to initially blend 5% of hydrogen, the partners plan to gradually increase the blend to 20%.

Neil Navin, Vice-President for Clean Energy Innovations at SoCalGas, said, “The use of existing natural gas networks to transport renewable hydrogen is actively being pursued around the world because clean fuels like hydrogen can do many of the critical jobs that natural gas does today.

“This demonstration project offers a real-world environment to better understand how clean fuel blends can be delivered to customers connected to the gas grid today. It can also help us assess how to more quickly deploy advanced technologies key to the state’s climate and clean air goals such as neighbourhood micro-grids that promote reliability and resiliency.”

Jack Brower, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCI, and Director of the UCI-Based National Fuel Cell Research Centre, commented, “Research at UCI has shown that we cannot achieve high renewable power use without the features of hydrogen. The massive storage and resilient underground transmission and distribution of renewable energy that will be enabled by transformation of the gas system to renewable and clean hydrogen use will be investigated and advanced in this important effort.”