California utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is launching a comprehensive end-to-end hydrogen study and demonstration facility to explore the potential of zero-carbon fuel hydrogen as a renewable source for customers and the natural gas industry.
The Hydrogen to Infinity project focuses on a large-scale project, which blends hydrogen and natural gas in a stand-alone transmission pipeline system. The Hydrogen to Infinity project will include a new 130-acre facility in Lodi, which will function as a study laboratory with production, pipeline transportation, storage, and combustion.
The project will enable the utility and its partners, namely GHD, the City of Lodi, Siemens Energy, the Northern California Power Agency and the University of California, to study the different hydrogen blends in a multi-feed, multi-directional natural gas pipeline system.
The facility will enable a controlled and safe study of hydrogen injection, storage, and combustion of the different blends for a variety of end uses. NCPA’s Lodi Energy Center power plant will use the hydrogen-natural gas blend for its Siemens Energy 5000F4 Gas Turbine for electric generation.
Focus areas of the project include safety needs, technical requirements, market development, energy resilience and flexibility, commercial and government partnerships and a training environment of the new technology.
Hydrogen itself does not emit greenhouse gas when burned. It is not naturally collected but must be created via several methods from more carbon-intensive steam reforming of methane gas or by electrolysis which separates the hydrogen from water.
To be considred truly "green hydrogen," the electrolysis is powered by zero-carbon resources such as wind, solar, hydro or nuclear.
