Energy measurement module validation for hydrogen/natural gas blends

当今工业面临的关键挑战之一是以有效、快速和破坏性最小的方式从化石燃料转向可再生能源。在这一旅程中，人们普遍预计氢气将在未来的能源组合中发挥关键作用，特别是在脱碳重型运输以及可能的家庭/工业供热方面。要使热量脱碳，一个有希望的解决方案(在中短期内)将是在我们的天然气网络中混合氢气(英国目前正在研究高达20%的氢气体积)。虽然乍一看这看起来微不足道，但它仍然是减少家庭/工业供暖产生的二氧化碳排放影响的重要第一步，家庭/工业供暖约占英国全部碳排放的40%。然而，在能源网络中测量混合气体面临着几个挑战。应对这些挑战需要开发先进的测量技术，例如专门为这些非常规气体及其混合物量身定做的传感器和校准技术。Hy-Met Limited已经在应对这些挑战方面迈出了第一步，并开发了一项创新的核心技术，使用了新颖的传感器和硬件设计，使其能够安装到现有的超声波智能煤气表中。另一个挑战在于从混合体积的天然气、氢气、沼气/生物甲烷和其他非常规气体/混合物中确定气体组成，该项目旨在开发一种满足这一需求的解决方案。Hy-Met和项目合作伙伴将结合我们的知识/解决方案来构建一种独特的气体能量测量仪。这种结合的方法将使我们的测量解决方案能够同时测量气体流量(即通过管道的流量)，并实时准确地分析气体混合物的组成和/或关键物理性质(即热值)，从而克服与传统方法相关的挑战，同时我们未来将转向复杂/混合天然气网络。

One of the key challenges facing industries today is to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy in an effective, fast, and least disruptive manner. In this journey, it is widely anticipated that hydrogen is going to play a critical role in the future energy mix, particularly for decarbonising heavy transport and possibly domestic/industrial heat. To decarbonise heat, one promising solution (in the short to medium term) is going to be blending hydrogen in our natural gas network (up to 20% by volume of hydrogen is currently being investigated in the UK). While this looks minimal at first, it is nevertheless a significant first step in reducing the impact of CO2 emissions from household/industrial heating, which accounts for around 40% of UK's entire carbon emission. However, measuring blended gases in energy networks presents several challenges. Addressing these challenges requires the development of advanced measurement technologies, such as specialized sensors and calibration techniques that are tailored to these unconventional gases and their blends.Hy-Met Limited has already taken the first step in addressing these challenges and has been developed an innovative core technology that uses a novel sensor and hardware design, that allows it to be fitted into existing ultrasonic smart gas meters. A further challenge lies in the determination of gas composition from blended volumes of natural gas, hydrogen, biogas/biomethane, and other unconventional gases/mixes and this project aims to develop a solution that meets this need.Hy-Met and project partners will combine our knowledge/solutions to build a unique gas energy measurement meter. This combined approach would enable our measurement solution to simultaneously measure gas flow rates (i.e., how much is going through a pipe) and accurate analysis of the composition and/or key physical properties (i.e., calorific value) of the gas mixture in real-time, overcoming the challenges associated with conventional methods while we move to complex/hybrid gas networks in the future.