Transport

Hygen is working with its sister companies, Wrightbus and Ryze Hydrogen, to decarbonise the UK’s bus sector.

Wrightbus has supplied more than 95% of the hydrogen buses operating in the UK today. Hygen is currently working on delivering hydrogen to bus operators in a number of cities across the UK, including London, Birmingham, and Belfast.

Hygen believes that by working with our customers we can design bespoke solutions specific to a depot which provide a supply of hydrogen which the bus operator can be confident will be: low carbon; cheaper than diesel; and have a stable price. In designing these solutions we aim to minimise disruption to the depot, so that the bus operator does not need to make any changes to its existing bus operations

Industry

We are currently working with businesses across the UK on a number of projects, including: displacing grey hydrogen with our cleaner green hydrogen; converting processes to run on hydrogen; and using hydrogen as a back up power source.

In most cases, the customer is able to significantly reduce their carbon emissions with minimal capex by simply blending hydrogen with the natural gas that their plant currently consumes.

When a plant comes to the end of its operating life we will look to support customers in moving to a new plant that is capable of running on a 100% supply of hydrogen.

Power

Hydrogen is an effective means of long-term energy storage, whilst storage is an effective means of maximising the uptime of an electrolyser.

Hygen is developing a number of hydrogen projects across the UK and Europe, to provide a low-carbon means of providing long-term, low-cost resilience to the electricity grid.

Grid injection

Grid injection of hydrogen into the gas network is currently challenging.

We predict this will evolve, with blending of up to 20% of hydrogen in the network likely to become possible over the next few years. National Grid is currently investing heavily in Project Union, a plan to repurpose existing gas pipes to create a hydrogen backbone across the UK by 2030.

Hygen is developing a number of projects that will be capable of injecting hydrogen into the gas network once allowed by the necessary regulations.

Ammonia

A key challenge with hydrogen is transportation.

One of the key challenges faced by the hydrogen economy is dealing with the fact that some of the cheapest hydrogen is likely to be produced in areas where there is little demand. And whilst it is possible to transport gaseous hydrogen long distances, it is expensive.

Hygen is working on a number of projects that will convert the green hydrogen produced to ammonia, enabling it to be transported long distances cost-effectively. These projects are being designed to enable the export of ammonia to other countries should production exceed demand in the UK.