Research services

Tender description

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is seeking to appoint a contractor (or contractors) to collate and assess a range technical evidence on the hydrogen supply chain and develop a modelling tool that can analyse the costs of hydrogen infrastructure. The main aim of this project is to improve our current understanding of the technical-infrastructural requirements, and associated energy system costs, for a transition towards a reliance on low carbon hydrogen to meet the demand for heat. This will involve (1) collating and assessing the evidence base and (2) developing a modelling tool. The primary focus of this work will be to assess hydrogen infrastructure evidence for heat in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors. The tool should also be able to incorporate the appropriate functionality to allow it to model geographical demands. Collation and critical assessment of evidence and project management 1.1 In order to develop an effective hydrogen infrastructure model, the project will need to assess and collate the existing evidence for the possible hydrogen supply chains to provide us with the best, most recently available data. First, this will require an exercise to collate the most recent evidence together in one place for ease of use. We expect that this exercise to necessitate the involvement of significant expertise and experience in this area. This evidence needs to be assessed by the contractors, to understand the uncertainty around the evidence at each part of the supply chain. Engineering input may also be required to translate foreign evidence into a format that is relevant for the UK context, to fill gaps in the evidence base and to make judgements as to appropriate assumptions for the likes of learning curves and build times. 1.2 An important part of this project will be to peer review the hydrogen evidence being used. To do this, it is the contractor will need to assemble propose a group of key members from industry and academia to review and provide comment on this work. At minimum, this group should include representatives from the gas distribution networks. 1.3 LOT 1 will also encompass an important project management role between BEIS and the hydrogen supply chain technical evidence and modelling tool project, as a whole. This is to ensure that the evidence collation and assessment exercise works with the model development to form an assumptions log to the required standard. Moreover, this relationship between the two LOTs and BEIS needs to be managed effectively so that the model incorporates a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of the assumptions within the model and how they have been interpreted. Lot 2: 2.1 The next stage of this project will incorporate this available evidence into a modelling tool. In terms of the model itself, this will involve either developing an existing modelling tool or creating a new tool. Beyond costing up different parts of the hydrogen supply chain, this tool must include the functionality to be able to answer the list of research questions contained within the tender documents. To be able to answer these questions the model will require: —A high level of temporal detail that is able to capture intra-day demand swings in order to model the impact of fluctuating demand on storage capacity and other associated hydrogen infrastructure. —A high level of spatial detail. This will remain unspecified. We expect a contractor to make a case for adopting their chosen level of spatial detail (or levels of detail) and why it would be best suited to this project. —A comprehensive representation of the relevant technologies, provided by the prior evidence collation and assessment exercise The different heat demands will be provided to the contractor by BEIS analysts. This will include annual demand and peak demand. Inter-regional transport and hydrogen for power demands will also be developed, working with the contractors.