Ireland’s gas network has a critically important role to play in achieving the Government’s goal of a carbon-neutral economy by 2050. The decarbonised energy system of the future will require an appropriate mix of electrons and molecules. In today’s world, those molecules are mainly natural gas, in tomorrow’s they will be renewable carbon neutral biomethane and green hydrogen.
The key is getting these gases to where they are needed when they are needed. “We are not a seller or a producer of gas,” Gas Networks Ireland chief executive Cathal Marley points out.
“We own a €2.8 billion network in the form of 14,700km of pipeline, our overground assets and two interconnectors to Scotland. Around 80 per cent of all of our gas will come through those interconnectors by the end of the decade if things remain as they are.”
While domestic use might be the most visible manifestation of Ireland’s gas market, Marley explains that the majority is used for electricity generation.
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“About 58 terawatt hours [TWh] of gas is transported on our network and 60 per cent of that goes to power generation. Another 29 per cent goes to industrial and commercial customers, and just 11 per cent to residential households.”
On average, 45 per cent of our electricity is generated from gas and sometimes up to 90 per cent, he says. “Renewables, like wind, are very intermittent and that won’t change. We are always going to need molecules to back up intermittent renewable power.”
Gas Networks Ireland is committed to playing its part in meeting Ireland’s climate targets and has published its Pathway to a Net Zero Carbon Network, which sets out its plans to deliver a repurposed, resized and fully decarbonised network by 2045.
At its most simple, the aim is to progressively replace natural gas with renewable carbon neutral biomethane and to latterly add emissions-free green hydrogen as it becomes available. Marley explains that large-scale hydrogen usage is some way off yet for its availability will be dependent on the development of offshore wind in Ireland and using excess power from that source to produce the gas.
“To produce hydrogen at scale requires a lot of offshore wind power and we are just beginning to roll that out,” he says.
“What’s available now is biomethane. We are gas experts and we have been doing research on that for the past four or five years. The Government’s national biomethane strategy set a target of 5.7 TWh by 2030. That’s realistic but we think it could be much higher. When we went out to the market, we had 176 expressions of interest from potential providers for between 14 and 15 TWh of biomethane.”
He outlines some of the advantages of the gas. “Biomethane is the Swiss army knife of renewables. It is fully circular. You take things like slurry and food waste, which are problems for the country, and use them to create clean energy. The digestate is a super clean fertiliser. This allows farmers to diversify and works perfectly for the Irish economy.”
Another benefit of biomethane is that it is an indigenous fuel, meaning it can contribute to energy security. “The Corrib gasfield is depleting. It’s now down to 15 to 17 per cent of our gas supply and will be down to 11 per cent by 2030. Biomethane will help to replace this volume of gas and will be a domestic clean backup fuel for Ireland.”
Indeed, it could replace quite a lot of it if the Danish experience is anything to go by. “Denmark has a similar size gas network to us. They started from a zero base in 2012 and today 40 per cent of their gas is biomethane. It has been a huge success story. We’ve visited Denmark to speak to biomethane producers, farmers, government agencies and others on several occasions. We have brought other stakeholders from Teagasc, government, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, regulators and customers with us as well. Everyone came back from those trips really excited about the potential of biomethane.”
The beauty of biomethane is that it is chemically identical to natural gas and can be injected directly into the network with no alterations. “We have five connection agreements with some of the bigger biomethane producers at present and will have up to 11 by the end of the year,” Marley points out. “We are also developing a central grid injection point in Mitchelstown.”
The Mitchelstown facility will collect gas delivered by smaller producers and inject it into the network.
While hydrogen production at scale may be some years away, Gas Networks Ireland is already preparing for it. “A hydrogen molecule is much smaller in size than natural gas and we need to ensure it is safe in our network,” says Marley. “We have to carry out rigorous testing. Hydrogen is already transported safely and successfully in the Netherlands and Germany but just because it works in one network doesn’t mean it will work in anyone else’s. Fortunately, ours is a very modern network in comparison to the others in Europe. We are doing a huge amount of testing now. We have our own Network Innovation Centre and are working in partnership with the likes of University College Dublin Energy Institute on it along with many other academic institutions.”
That research and testing has found that existing domestic appliances and most of the equipment employed by companies using large amounts of energy will be capable of taking gas with up to 20 per cent hydrogen content without the need for retrofitting. “We are very confident that our network will also be capable of safely transporting a blend with 20 per cent hydrogen. We are making sure that the network can transport green hydrogen when it becomes available.”
The organisation is also looking beyond its own network and is bringing its expertise and safety knowledge to bear in support of this nascent industry sector. The organisation is part of the Celtic Hydrogen Cluster, whose ambition is to establish the Celtic Sea region as a world leader in floating offshore wind by 2030. Involving a number of energy producer and consumers, it is currently looking at the production, storage and safe transport of hydrogen.
Over time, the network will carry a blend of biomethane and hydrogen, but it is envisaged that a tipping point will be reached when the volume of hydrogen will require a separate network solution.
“With hydrogen, the ultimate goal will be to move to a dedicated network for the gas,” he says. “Various market reports illustrate that the cost to repurpose gas pipes is expected to be just 10 to 35 per cent of the cost of building new hydrogen pipelines. The repurposing of gas pipelines is therefore expected to form an important element of the development of hydrogen networks globally. We will eventually have two dedicated biomethane and hydrogen networks. That will probably be fully achieved in the 2040s.”
Gas Networks Ireland’s objective for 2045 is that it will no longer be using any natural gas on the network. “Our pathway document is an important signal to the biomethane industry of our ambitions in this regard. Soon we will produce another document which will set out our decarbonisation journey in more granular detail,” he says.
“For us as a company it’s a very exciting time. I’ve been working in the energy sector for the past 25 years and I am very excited about the next phase.”
To read more about Gas Networks Ireland’s energy ambitions visit gasnetworks.ie/pathway