The Delgaz Grid company, a member of the E.ON Romania group, has successfully completed the last stage of the 20HyGrid project from Dârlos, Sibiu county, by testing the operation of a polyethylene network segment with a mixture of hydrogen (20%) and natural gas (80 %), the first tests of this kind performed in Romania.
This stage of the project consisted of injecting the mixture directly into the natural gas distribution network that supplies more than 50 buildings located on Morii street in the Sibiu town.
“To credibly demonstrate that hydrogen and gas blending can be a feasible and safe solution under real-world conditions, field tests with customers are essential. For new sustainable fuels such as hydrogen, it’s about providing customers with experience and knowledge directly from specialists on how their installations and devices work,” said Cristian Ifrim, Deputy General Manager of Delgaz Grid.
To carry out the tests, the natural gas supply was stopped on Morii street, and the network was fed from a battery of mixed cylinders, prepared in advance. The tests lasted about six hours, and the company’s specialists monitored several parameters of the network’s operation, checked the combustion process of all appliances in every building fed from the network, and measured combustion parameters of more than 80% of the thermal plants.
“There is no noticeable difference compared to 100% natural gas in terms of the operation of the distribution infrastructure and the installations and appliances that we tested at customers’ homes. The tests in the field validate 100% the results of the tests carried out in the test site in our professional training center in Mediaș,” added Dr. Cristian Călin, Gas Technical Manager, project coordinator.
Mircea Popa, a participant in the project, said: “I agreed to participate in this project because I thought that someone should help the specialists to test alternative solutions to gas heating for the future. I was never afraid that something bad might happen, having the company’s engineers and technicians by my side.”
“We are a community concerned with the future and we felt happy to be the first in the country to get involved in the Delgaz Grid project. We hope that we have helped the specialists to take another step in their endeavor to find a solution that will ensure the heat in our houses and the comfort that natural gas brings, but without pollution”, said Ioan Lupu, the mayor of Dârlos commune.
The 20HyGrid project continues on a street in Gornești, Mureș county, a town with a steel natural gas network. Here, the company is starting tests with residential customers this month to verify the operation of indoor installations and existing appliances with a mixture of natural gas (80%) and hydrogen (20%). After the completion of these tests, the company will, in the final stage, test the operation of the steel network with this mixture, simultaneously with the installations and equipment of the customers.