Under the Hydrogen Energy Social Infrastructure Development Demonstration Project, society-wide demonstration efforts are being conducted in order to study safe and easy ways to produce, transport, store and use hydrogen in the form of two projects. One is the Hydrogen Highway Project, which aims to establish “regular expressway services using fuel cell buses/vehicles”; and the other is the recently announced Hydrogen Town Project, through which hydrogen will be supplied via pipelines for use in general consumer households.
In a recent press release, the METI explained that the Research Association of Hydrogen Supply/Utilisation Technology will install pipelines from Kitakyushu Hydrogen Station (Higashida, Yahata-higashi-ku, Kitakyushu-shi, Fukuoka), that uses hydrogen manufactured by Nippon Steel Corporation, to condominiums, individual dwellings and both commercial and public facilities in the vicinity “to demonstrate operation of pure-hydrogen-type fuel cells for both home and business use”.
This project is intended to test the viability of the systems from the points of view of “stable supply”, “safety assurance” and “appropriate charging procedures” which will be required for hydrogen supply businesses using pipelines. Specifically, technology to add or remove smells to or from hydrogen for its safe use, a hydrogen gas metering system required for charging of hydrogen in the future, the operational performance of pure-hydrogen-type fuel cells and other various factors will be verified through demonstration.
The METI claims that this is a world first for such a community-level demonstration involving general households and both commercial and public facilities.
Through this demonstration project, the METI aims to verify the viability of certain business models for a future hydrogen society so as to offer them as social infrastructure models. In pursuing this goal, METI seeks to push forward with the measures needed to establish a low-carbon society.
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