Turkey Konya blends hydrogen, natural gas for homes

Turkey will start blending hydrogen and natural gas at a newly established facility, the Centre for Clean Energy Technologies’ in the central province of Konya, from today (2^nd April), H2 Bulletin reports.

Fatih Dönmez, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources will inaugurate the new facility today. It is established by Gazbir-Gazmer, the technical centre of the Natural Gas Distributors Association (Gazbir). This will be the first time in Turkey that natural gas and hydrogen will be blended and provided to households.

Dönmez said ahead of the opening of the facility that hydrogen would be injected into natural gas at certain ratios. He further added that the blended natural gas would be extended to other parts of the country in the medium-term.

The facility will help Turkey to increase its energy efficiency to help reduces its reliance on imported energy. The country started its first Power-to-Gas project in Konya early last year. It is expected that this would help cut carbon emission and import natural gas.

Gazbir-Gazmer centre has previously conducted various tests of mixing hydrogen between 5% to 20%. Following the successful testings, it was concluded that hydrogen could be mixed with natural gas in distribution networks by a maximum of up to 20% without making any significant changes to the current gas network and consumer devices.