National Gas has kicked off the next stage of its H₂ program by engaging Jacobs and ERM to help deliver pre-front-end engineering design (pre-FEED) activities for a H₂ backbone connecting industrial regions across Britain.

Project Union is a pioneering project led by National Gas to create a British H₂ backbone, capable of transporting 100% H₂, connecting H₂ production and storage with end users. Through the phased repurposing of existing high-pressure gas transmission network infrastructure—alongside the construction of selected new pipelines —Project Union will create a H₂ network of up to 2,000 km, equivalent to 25% of Britain’s current methane transmission network.

Jacobs and ERM will work with National Gas to develop strategic route options, culminating in the production of a strategic options report and pre-FEED report for a full H₂ backbone. This process will involve:

• Customer and stakeholder engagement and analysis
• Technical assessments for repurposing national transmission pipelines for H₂ use
• Environmental and planning consent review of options
• Constructability assessments which will minimize design delays, and over-expenditure by identifying potential obstacles to construction
• H₂ network flow assurance and enhanced cost-estimation of options.

The project is currently in a feasibility phase to identify a program of ‘no regrets’ investments. The program is yielding supporting evidence to inform energy policy and enable Government to make progress in realizing its H₂ ambitions, which include reaching 10 GW of low-carbon H₂ production capacity by 2030.

The contract announcement also follows the publication of the National Infrastructure Commission’s 5-yearly National Infrastructure Assessment (October 18), which recommended a national H₂ network to connect and decarbonize major industrial centers across Britain and strengthen energy security.

Danielle Stewart, Project Director of Project Union at National Gas, said, “Engaging Jacobs and ERM is an exciting development for Project Union: but most importantly it represents the next step in providing widespread access to low carbon H₂ in Britain, leading to system resilience and efficiency by using shared network infrastructure.”

Koti Vadlamudi, Senior Vice President at Jacobs, said, “Leveraging Jacobs’ global energy capability, deep cross-sector experience and our digital data platforms to develop strategic route options and pre-FEED reports, we’re committed to shaping tomorrow’s climate response focused energy solutions with aligned partners like National Gas in the UK and around the world.”

Russell Cullen, Partner at ERM, said, “ERM is delighted to be supporting National Gas and Jacobs with environmental and sustainability services for the upgrade of the National Transmission System. This project will help to deliver on the net zero agenda for the UK and reinforces how ERM's services can support National Gas across the business lifecycle towards a sustainable economy, developing physical assets in a sustainable way and integrating sustainability into daily operations.”

The outputs of this phase of work will enable investment decisions to be made for future development phases of Project Union and the wider GB H₂ economy.