The challenges of integrating hydrogen in the Dutch natural gas infrastructure

Abstract

The Dutch government has announced that 7 million houses and 1 million buildings in the service sector need to be provided by sustainable heat in 2050 (Klimaatberaad, 2018b). This is an enormous challenge considering that over 90 percent of the houses and service sector buildings in the Netherlands are currently heated by the local combustion of natural gas (Hans Ariëns, 2018). The objective of this policy measure is in line with the European climate targets to mitigate the effect of climate change (Klimaatberaad, 2018a). Moreover, it helps to facilitate the Dutch policy to stop the natural gas extraction from the largest natural gas field in the Netherlands (Klimaatberaad, 2018a). To achieve the enormous objective in 2050, the Dutch government is choosing a gradual approach and formulated a first clear policy target for 2030. The CO2 emissions of the buildings induced by space heating and domestic water heating need to be reduced by 3,4 Mt compared to the 1990 levels (Klimaatberaad, 2018a). Sustainability measures in the service sector should lead to a reduction of 1 Mt and phasing out natural gas in 1.5 million houses in combination with insulation measures should cover the remainder of 2 Mt (Klimaatberaad, 2018a). To adequately meet the demand for space heating and domestic water heating in 2030 and beyond, alternative heating technologies need to be integrated in the energy infrastructures to provide the desired energy demand to the buildings. Natural gas is currently distributed by means of an extensive gas infrastructure. There is a potential to use the existing infrastructure to distribute and store sustainable gasses such as biomethane or hydrogen (Dodds & McDowall, 2013). Alternative energy infrastructures can also replace the natural gas infrastructure in the satisfaction of the energy demand. Possibilities are the electricity infrastructure and a district heating infrastructure. Energy can also be produced locally from renewable energy sources as biomass, geothermal energy, solar energy, and wind energy