If you want to reduce your carbon footprint and enhance the efficiency of your heating and hot water system, it may be that you have read about the potential of hydrogen boilers as an alternative to natural gas boilers.
Adding hydrogen to the natural gas that flows into our homes is one of several long-term options the Government is exploring as it looks at ways to decarbonise UK heating systems in line with its agenda for reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. One method is to blend 20% hydrogen gas into the natural gas. This could be safely transported through the pipes in our existing gas network, which would save the costs and time of building a new delivery system.
However, the boilers in our homes are designed to run on 100% natural gas. As a result, manufacturers such as Alpha Heating Innovation, are developing boilers which are hydrogen-ready so that they run on natural gas in the usual way but can safely utilise this blend of natural gas and hydrogen with a small adjustment by a Gas Safe engineer.
There has also been some discussion of eventually switching to a 100% use of hydrogen gas for heating and hot water production in homes. In reality, hydrogen is unlikely to be widely adopted into UK heating systems for many years, perhaps even a decade. And while Alpha support on-going research into this area we remain dedicated to meeting the demands of today’s customers whose homes need to be heated by domestic gas boilers.
Our advice to customers is that you don’t need to go out and buy a new hydrogen-ready boiler right now. But if you do decide to replace an older boiler in the next year to five years, then it is worth speaking to your installer about a hydrogen-ready option.
For further information on this topic please take a look at our article Hydrogen-ready boilers – planning ahead.