18 Feb Hydrogen homes are already here

Source:http://cnbc.com

Next April, British householders will have the opportunity to visit the first houses built in Britain where all the appliances run on hydrogen. The UK government’s Hy4Heat program has allocated £250,000 to develop two semi-detached properties fuelled by hydrogen. Northern Gas Networks and Cadent will also invest a further £250,000 to carry out the building of such homes in Low Thornley, Gateshead, in the northeast of England.

The purpose of these houses is to showcase how hydrogen can replace other power sources in a domestic environment. They will work as open houses for the public to see, first hand, the potential of hydrogen. Hydrogen can be obtained from renewable sources and its only by-product is water; therefore we are speaking about green hydrogen. In the case of the houses in Low Thornley, hydrogen will come in bottled form, although the companies are convinced that green hydrogen will be available in the near future.

This project is part of a 10-point plan for the “Green Industrial Revolution” published by PM Boris Johnson towards the decarbonisation of the UK. A similar project was announced last November by Ofgem, the energy regulator, to invest £18,000,000 funds to heat homes in Scotland using green hydrogen. The Scottish government is to invest £6.9 million for H100 Fife project. A firm responsible for the gas network in Scotland and South England described the initiative as “100% hydrogen demonstration network…that will bring carbon-free heating and cooking to around 300 homes from the end of 2022.”

The US is also taking steps into Hydrogen homes and last December, the Southern California Gas Co. Announced plans to build hydrogen powered houses too and said the project was the “first of its kind” and would comprise “a home, solar panels, a home battery, an electrolyzer to convert solar energy into clean hydrogen, and a fuel cell to convert that hydrogen back to electricity”.