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SoCalGas to test hydrogen viability in 2 new projects

Southern California Gas Co. is tackling a pair of new hydrogen projects, building on a recently announced demonstration program to blend the zero-carbon fuel with natural gas and ongoing research and development.

SoCalGas aims to demonstrate the potential for hydrogen to power household systems and appliances by feeding a hydrogen-natural gas blend into a demonstration home, the company said in a Dec. 15 press release.

SoCalGas will build the H2 Hydrogen Home from scratch, using solar panels for on-site power generation. It will route excess electricity to a home battery and an electrolyzer, which splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. SoCalGas will convert some of that "green" hydrogen back to electricity using a fuel cell and blend the rest with natural gas for use in the home's heat pump HVAC unit, water heater, clothes dryer and stove.

The impact of hydrogen blends on end-use equipment remains a critical question as gas utilities seek to leverage the fuel to decarbonize their distribution systems. SoCalGas intends to use varying percentages of hydrogen in the natural gas stream and capture data from the project.

The company expects to complete the project by late 2021. It will partner with structures and logistics firm ATCO Ltd., which designed and built Perth, Australia's Clean Energy Innovation Hub, a "living lab to test hybrid energy solutions."

Separately, SoCalGas announced it will field-test technology created by Netherlands-based HyET Hydrogen that simultaneously separates and compresses hydrogen from natural gas blends. At scale, the technology could enable affordable hydrogen transportation through existing natural gas pipelines, SoCalGas said in a Dec. 16 press release.

HyET's electrochemical hydrogen purification and compression technology would also allow extraction and compression at filling stations for fuel cell electric vehicles. Hydrogen for transportation is one of several key end-use markets that proponents of the so-called hydrogen economy aim to develop.

SoCalGas will blend hydrogen concentrations of 3% to 15% with methane and inject the blend through a pipeline testing system into the HyET system. The field test will initially seek to extract and compress hydrogen at a rate of 10kg/day. Over the course of two years, SoCalGas aims to scale up to 100kg/day, enough to fuel 20 fuel cell electric vehicles, or more.

Testing will get underway in March at SoCalGas' Pico Rivera, Calif., engineering analysis center, with a target completion date in the third quarter of 2021.