For the urgent progress towards developing hydrogen as a realistic energy option, a practical strategy must be adopted within the context of the existing, extensive natural gas system. This is the only realistic solution to large-scale distribution of hydrogen in Europe in the next 30 to 50 years. The main basis of this view is that:

• Significant financial and economic benefits can arise from the use of the existing infrastructure with its inherent economic value of several hundreds of billions of Euros;

• Using the existing gas infrastructure for the change to the hydrogen economy accelerates the transition rate and the innovations in all relevant fields.

This vision is also supported by the United States Department of Energy as reported in the National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap (April 2-3, 2002): “Vision of hydrogen delivery: A national hydrogen supply network will evolve from the existing fossil fuel-based infrastructure to accommodate both centralized and decentralized production facilities”.

Further to this vision, the NATURALHY Project aims to identify and solve the barriers for progressively introducing hydrogen to natural gas networks and to support the development of a roadmap towards the full hydrogen economy by IP HYWAYS. Gaining experience with testing key components of hydrogen systems will speed up the transition process. The NATURALHY Project will achieve these aims by means of the following set of coherent and complementary objectives:

• To define the technical conditions under which hydrogen can be accommodated in the existing natural gas system with acceptable risks, to avoid leakage and significant degradation of the system and consequences for the end users.

• To analyse the socio-economic aspects of transitional natural gas/hydrogen systems and compare these with current natural gas and related systems with particular reference to job creation and maintenance, capital investment and total economic costs.

• To carry out life cycle assessment as a means of comparing the major resource inputs and environmental outputs of current natural gas and related systems, transitional natural gas/hydrogen systems and the full hydrogen system including methods of hydrogen production.

• To develop innovative devices (membranes) to separate hydrogen from hydrogen/natural gas mixtures: these devices will enable an early establishment of hydrogen growth centres that will advance a gradual transition to the full hydrogen economy.

• To motivate all stakeholders in the whole chain from production up to and including end use to welcome .hydrogen.. Such stakeholders consist of among others, the public, end users, manufacturers of appliances, owners and operators of gas transmission grids, hydrogen producers, local, regional and national authorities, manufacturers of all kinds of equipment and components for gas, etc. This objective will be met in cooperation with IP HYWAYS and the NoE HYSAFE.

• To assess the current situation of standards and regulations regarding hydrogen/natural gas mixtures and to identify necessary modifications and to initiate required changes.

• To develop a Decision Support Tool for the assessment of the suitability of an existing natural gas system (transmission, storage, distribution, end user infra structure and end user appliance) for mixtures of hydrogen/natural gas and to develop models to determine the economic and environmental aspects of the whole chain from sustainable hydrogen production up to and including end user appliance.