02 March 2024 , 14:01
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A fascinating 177,000-mile secret network of underground tunnels could be the key to help the UK reach national net zero.
The hidden network of pipes beneath the UK could be repurposed to create cleaner energy distribution system, an industry expert said. She compared the network, Britain’s gas grid, as "the equivalent of the UK’s motorways" and could provide a way hydrogen to be transported across Great Britain.
Sarah Williams, Director of Regulation, Asset Strategy & HS&E at gas transportation firm Wales & West Utilities is urging the UK Government to rapidly invest in homegrown hydrogen production to speed up the decarbonisation process. She said: “Across the UK, we've got 285,000 kilometres (177,000 miles) of pipes under the ground. We need to be able to reuse that.... There's obviously a school of thought that says we should go to electrification and we should decommission the gas network.
Speaking to Express.co.uk, the industry expert continued: "But there is a cost to decommission the gas network. The National Infrastructure Commission recently published a report into the future of Great Britain's gas grid, and they suggested that it would be £28billion cheaper to repurpose the network and use it for hydrogen than to decommission it.
“Our vision is we have these pipes today so we should use them. This network is like a national treasure that nobody really even thinks about. Last year 30 per cent of our electricity was generated from gas, but the interlinkage between that and our power system is poorly understood."
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The UK is being urged to repurpose a 177,000-mile system of subterranean pipes and tunnels (Energy Networks Association)Ms Williams said her company was responsible for serving 2.5 million customers across an area containing a population of roughly 7.5 million people in Wales and the South West of England. She said: “We cover big cities like Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter and Taunton.
"And then we go right through into Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Brecon Beacons, and everything in between, including Cornwall." Ms Williams added: “It's really important to note that our domestic customers are attached to exactly the same pipes as the businesses and industrial consumers.
“People imagine that industry and businesses and have their own gas pipes and then homes are connected to a separate network, but they're not. They're interconnected.” The energy expert is now calling on the UK to exploit a newfound opportunity to harness its own homegrown hydrogen supply.
Sarah Williams from Wales & West Utilities is pictured (Wales & West Utilities)She said: “The homegrown hydrogen opportunity is really what you want to see in the UK. And you would think that there is a great opportunity for us to do that. But a bit more speed and pace from the Government is going to be required to really give that investment signal that the UK is the place to invest in hydrogen for the future.”
Ms Williams cited the resource’s reliability when asked about the benefits of using gas as an energy source. She said: “One of the main benefits is reliability: you typically will experience no more than one gas interruption in your whole life, which is very different to an electricity connection where, typically, you may experience an interruption once every year or a couple of years.”
But she went on to admit there were still some challenges associated with repurposing the UK gas grid to be used for hydrogen. She said: “Obviously, we would absolutely not put anything into a customer's home that wasn't as safe as what we've got today. And the Health and Safety Executive are working alongside us, but equally looking at the viability so we're looking at we've got about 80 per cent of our pipes already plastic, so they are suitable for hydrogen to be put through them.
“So it's about understanding how we get from that production to distribution into the customer's home. I think technically, it's relatively simple. I think it's more around the making sure that all of the different parts have end to end right from production to the consumer home already, and the sequencing of that would have been tested through to the trial.”