Delgaz Grid, a member company of the E.ON Romania group, presented the final conclusions of the “20HyGrid” pilot project to the representatives of the Ministry of Energy and ANRE
The main conclusion of the project, carried out for the first time in Romania, is that the use of the mixture of natural gas (80%) and hydrogen (20%) in the existing distribution networks, installations and devices of use at customers, without the need for any modification of them, is possible from a technical point of view and without risks additional compared to the use of natural gas.
The main components of the existing natural gas distribution network are already ready for hydrogen. At pressures below 16 bar there are no fundamental limitations for hydrogen supply in terms of tightness, materials, and functionality of network elements.
“Green gases improve people’s lives, providing even better comfort in the long term because they protect the environment at the same time. The 20HyGrid project shows that our natural gas distribution networks have a key role to play in transporting green gas to industry, households and wherever it is needed. We must act now, together with the authorities and other players in the market, to capitalize on the huge potential and all the specific advantages that Romania must become a regional hydrogen hub, a relevant player on the market, meeting the conditions across the board the value of the new energy vector”, said Volker Raffel, CEO of E.ON Romania.
Sebastian Burduja, Minister of Energy: “The results of the pilot projects are encouraging and offer us very good prospects for reaching the targets assumed by Romania within the energy and climate policy of the European Union. Through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Ministry of Energy is currently finalizing the strategic and legislative framework that facilitates investments in the production and use of green hydrogen. At the same time, we have allocated funding of over 1 billion Euros until 2030, from the Fund for Modernization and PNRR, to support investments for the development of the entire value chain of hydrogen from renewable sources.”
“An important step in the energy transition is the implementation of hydrogen technologies. We welcome with great interest the project developed by Delgaz Grid/E.ON group, because it can provide the necessary practical basis for the transposition of regulations in this field, a new field in Europe that requires a careful approach to technical conditions and specific standards, in order to ensure the conditions of safety in operation. It is a starting point in the use of a mixture of 20% hydrogen and 80% natural gas in distribution networks with strict compliance with all technical conditions and safety of the population”, said George Niculescu, president of the National Regulatory Authority in Energy (ANRE).
“Now is the right time to take advantage of hydrogen’s potential to play a key role in addressing the critical challenges of the energy transition. 20HyGrid demonstrated that we can use Romania’s natural gas infrastructure, over 70,000 kilometers long and serving 4 million homes, to harness hydrogen energy, mixed with natural gas in a first stage, safely and efficiently for human benefit”, said Cristian Secoșan, general manager of Delgaz Grid.
