Keele's Green Hydrogen Hub

HyDEX was a three-year project focused on the development and establishment of a hydrogen economy in the Midlands. It proved to be highly effective in demonstrating how hydrogen can be produced onsite at Keele University. The project was important because it showed that we could generate and use green hydrogen on campus. Green hydrogen is produced using only renewable sources of electricity, which makes it very different from many other hydrogen production methods currently in use.

This is the Horwood Energy Centre control room, where all the software is housed that controls renewable generation and balances it with campus demand. Keele University operates at the size and scale of a small town, with a wide mix of buildings and energy uses across campus. This makes it an ideal environment to demonstrate these technologies, with the potential for them to be scaled up and applied elsewhere.

We have ten small electrolysers located in the HyDEX compound. The aim is to use these to capture excess electricity. One of the challenges at Keele is that we can only send a limited amount of electricity back to the grid. The first step when excess energy is generated is to charge the battery. The second step is demand response, which includes operating the electrolysers. We turn up everything we control to absorb as much generation as possible. As a last resort, to avoid breaching export limits, we must curtail solar generation and reduce output. This is where the electrolysers play an important role, capturing excess energy and using it in useful ways.

On campus, we also have a storage unit and a refuelling station, which allows us to tap into the transport sector by using hydrogen directly in vehicles. This acts as a real proof of concept, demonstrating how hydrogen can be generated and consumed at a realistic local level. Beyond this, there are opportunities for hydrogen to be used in other sectors. In particular, there is potential to scale up hydrogen production for green ammonia, which feeds into fertiliser production and food generation, and can also be used as a fuel for shipping.

Hydrogen is still in its infancy. Thirty or forty years ago, the only place you might see solar panels was on a calculator, and few people would have imagined that entire campuses could one day be powered by solar generation. There is no single solution to achieving net zero. Instead, we will need to deploy a range of technologies and balance them effectively. Ultimately, this involves flexing the country’s power use up and down to align with the renewable generation available at any given time.