Southern Company and its Southern Company Gas subsidiary have helped to start a new research and development (R&D) initiative, known as HyBlend, to address the technical barriers to blending hydrogen in natural gas infrastructure and study life-cycle emissions of hydrogen blends. Southern Company Gas will spearhead the initiative. The HyBlend project will encompass more than $15 MM in hydrogen research.

The areas of research include studying life-cycle emissions of hydrogen blends and techno-economic analysis of the costs and opportunities of hydrogen production. The project will leverage DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office’s Hydrogen Materials Compatibility Consortium, led by SNL and PNNL, which is an internationally recognized framework for the study of hydrogen–materials compatibility.

Introducing hydrogen into existing natural gas infrastructure has national and regional benefits for energy storage, resiliency and emissions reductions. Hydrogen can be produced by splitting water molecules with renewable, nuclear or other sources of energy. This hydrogen could be injected into natural gas infrastructure, and the blend of hydrogen and natural gas can then be transported to end users of the fuel.

This two-year project was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy through the H2@Scale 2020 CRADA Call.

The HyBlend team is comprised of six DOE national laboratories ― National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and the National Energy Technology Laboratory ― and more than 20 participants from industry and academia.