The NATURALHY project focuses on the chain from hydrogen production up to end user appliances and concerns life cycle analysis, socio-economic aspects, technical aspects  and dissemination to all stakeholders involved (partly in cooperation with HYSAFE and HYWAYS).

Concerning the more technical aspects, the project is dedicated to safety, measures to guarantee safety on the longer term, norms and standards and stationary end user appliances, but leaves out hydrogen production.

NATURALHY integrates the necessary activities to successfully prepare all stakeholders to welcome hydrogen by using the existing natural gas system for transportation of hydrogen/natural gas mixtures. The technical activities are focused on existing situations/materials/constructions/circumstances /equipment in relation to the specific physical properties of hydrogen/natural gas mixtures. The potentials will be mapped out of the existing natural gas system during the transition towards the full hydrogen economy. In addition, the means (including membranes) for local full hydrogen areas (growth centres) will be developed and demonstrated, based on the separation of hydrogen from hydrogen/natural gas mixtures at/near the location of the end user.

As indicated in the above figure, the attention for the technical aspects in this project is limited to:

• Gas transmission;

• Gas storage;

• Gas distribution systems;

• End-user infra structure and stationary appliances.

Whereas for all non-technical issues (upper part of the figure), the whole chain including:

• Various sustainable hydrogen production facilities and processes, and;

• Natural gas exploitation is taken into account.

The Life Cycle and Economic Analyses Work Package concern the use of the existing gas system for hydrogen/natural gas system and the full hydrogen situation with a new dedicated hydrogen infrastructure. The existing situation will be the reference case. No physical work is planned regarding hydrogen production: including hydrogen production would make the project too extensive for framework 6. However, hydrogen production aspects are taken into account in the Life Cycle Analyses. Hydrogen producers participate in this project and several partners participate in projects dedicated to sustainable hydrogen production.

The Technical Work Packages 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 originate from the impact on safety by the fact that the properties of hydrogen differ significantly from natural gas: the diffusion of hydrogen into the pipeline material can have a negative effect on the mechanical properties of the material (embrittlement of steel pipelines). Consequently, activities have been defined regarding the acceptability of corrosion defects and sharp defects contained in these brittle zones, to update the associated assessment criteria (WP3) and the maintenance procedures, repair techniques and equipment to assess the integrity of pipelines in presence of hydrogen and natural gas mixtures (WP4). The needed sensitivity of monitoring equipment for defects for the hydrogen situation is higher than in the case of natural gas and the smallest defect might be critical in the situation of hydrogen/natural gas. Nevertheless, the questions on the permeation of hydrogen/natural gas mixtures through the wall of polymer pipelines are also seriously considered in the NATURALHY-project.