H2 heating | New 'hydrogen community' of 85,000 residents being planned in Alberta, Canada
Local gas company ATCO given about $1.5m of public money for feasibility study into new housing development on outskirts of Edmonton that will use hydrogen for heating
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The Bremner Hydrogen Community will be an entirely new neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city of Edmonton, which could ultimately house 85,000 people, expanding the city’s population by 8%.
But the “100% hydrogen” label does not extend to the power supply, which will be delivered from the province’s grid and maybe onsite solar, said Canadian gas company ATCO, which is running the project with real estate developer Qualico.
Final investment decision is scheduled for the end of the two-year study, with the first houses occupied by the end of 2025, ATCO said.
But the firm appears to be leaning towards using Alberta-sourced blue hydrogen made with fossil gas and carbon capture and storage (CCS), which it claims will be cost competitive with fossil gas by 2030 as a result of Canada’s carbon tax, currently around C$50/tonne.
“The lifecycle carbon intensity of the hydrogen produced from these projects is estimated to be 90-95% lower than natural gas.”
The province is a massive oil and gas hub, playing host to a multitude of fossil fuel developers as well as Shell’s flagship Quest CCS hydrogen production facility in Edmonton.
Alberta Innovates also handed out cash to 18 other hydrogen research and innovation projects in the province, including a methane pyrolysis scheme run by Aurora Hydrogen, and four hydrogen blending projects, including one run by TransCanada, which operates giant transnational pipelines across the US, Canada and Mexico.
Funding was also extended to an ammonia project, a hydrogen engine retrofit programme and several hydrogen storage schemes.
The funding announcement comes as European countries face an uphill battle to instigate domestic hydrogen heating demonstrations, on the back of warnings that hydrogen is both more expensive, less efficient and potentially less safe than fossil gas or heat pumps.