Future of Energy
Building Trust Through Responsible Innovation
At NiSource, we are committed to being a partner in responsibly addressing the need for cleaner energy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions to fuel a cleaner future. Our goal is to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions from our operations by 2040 (covering Scope 1 and 2 emissions). To get there, we believe it takes a balanced approach to ensure safe, reliable and equitable access to energy for our customers, while supporting the economy and protecting our environment.
We are exploring a diverse collection of clean energy options to ensure a secure energy future. One such energy source is hydrogen. As the most abundant and versatile energy resource, hydrogen is being explored across the country because the infrastructure that delivers natural gas today can also transport other fuel sources for the same purpose.
NiSource plans to adapt to the evolving landscape through innovation and collaboration, leveraging the existing and expansive natural gas infrastructure to deliver natural gas and other forms of energy like hydrogen to accelerate decarbonization, ensuring a reliable, sustainable and safe energy supply to the communities we serve.
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At NiSource, we’re committed to being a partner in responsibly addressing the need for cleaner energy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions to fuel a cleaner future.
We previously announced our goal to achieve net zero for greenhouse gas emissions from our operations by 2040 covering Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
We believe it takes a balanced approach to ensure safe, reliable and equitable access to energy for our customers while supporting the economy and protecting our environment.
We are exploring a diverse collection of clean energy options to ensure a secure energy future.
One such energy source is hydrogen.
As the most abundant and versatile energy resource, hydrogen is being explored across the country because the infrastructure that delivers natural gas today can also transport other fuel sources for the same purpose.
At NiSource, we are actively exploring how hydrogen can best support our customers and the role it can play in America’s energy future.
When burned as a fuel, clean hydrogen does not release any carbon dioxide.
And combining it with natural gas reduces net C-O-Two emissions while remaining safe and reliable.
At our state-of-the-art training site, we’ve proven that blending hydrogen with natural gas works.
NiSource is one of the first utilities in the nation to have a hydrogen blending skid on-site.
This sophisticated system allows us to mix clean hydrogen and natural gas with pinpoint accuracy.
And it gives us the ability to collect valuable real-time data in a controlled environment.
We are proving that the blend can fuel the same traditional gas appliances you might find in your home, from furnaces and water heaters to stoves and dryers.
The blend is safe, compatible with existing gas appliances, meets performance standards, and decreases net C-O-Two emissions.
This multi-phase hydrogen blending program is part of our path to providing a reliable and sustainable energy supply, strengthening our communities, spurring economic development, and protecting our shared resources.
Delivery of a clean hydrogen natural gas blend to our customers through our existing pipeline infrastructure saves our communities money.
NiSource.
The future of energy is here.
Hydrogen and natural gas blend can reduce carbon emissions while remaining safe and reliable.
NiSource and Hydrogen
NiSource is exploring hydrogen as a potential source in a future energy mix through participation in several federal funding opportunities within the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Hub program and other company-initiated pilot programs.NiSource is conducting a multi-phase hydrogen blending project as a potential way to enhance our customers’ sustainability and provide a safe, reliable and renewable energy source for years to come.
Phase 1 is being conducted at NiSource’s Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania Training Center’s Safety Town in Monaca, Pa., to determine the optimal blend percent that could be introduced into the natural gas distribution system. Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania partnered with EN Engineering to build a hydrogen blending skid that mixes hydrogen with natural gas into Safety Town’s distribution system at various percentages, ranging from 2 to 20 percent. Field confirmations are being conducted to determine hydrogen’s effect on natural gas, equipment, piping and the net change in carbon emissions from blending. The pilot also allows NiSource field personnel firsthand experience working with hydrogen blends.
About Hydrogen
- Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on earth. It can be produced from a variety of energy sources, stored for future use, piped to where it’s needed and converted into a clean source of heat and electricity.
- We believe it can be a zero-carbon fuel, producing only water and energy when burned.
- When combusted, hydrogen produces water vapor with no carbon emissions. It can be safely produced, transported, stored and blended into the existing natural gas infrastructure.
- Hydrogen has been used for decades in aeronautics to fuel space exploration and in the industrial sector to process food, manufacture electronics, and make glass and metal. In addition, Europe, Asia, and Australia are scaling up their use of hydrogen to combat climate change and lower carbon emissions.
- Hydrogen is one promising solution to tackle various critical energy challenges. We believe it offers ways to decarbonize a range of sectors – including long-haul transport, chemicals, and iron and steel – where it is proving difficult to reduce emissions meaningfully. It can also help improve air quality and strengthen energy security.
- Hydrogen is versatile, as it can produce, store, move and use energy differently using existing technologies. Various fuels, including renewables, nuclear, natural gas, coal and oil, can produce hydrogen. We are exploring how it can be safely transported as a gas by pipelines or in liquid form by ships, much like liquefied natural gas (LNG). It can be transformed into electricity and methane to power homes and feed industry and into fuels for cars, trucks, ships and planes.
- While hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on Earth, it rarely exists alone. Therefore, it is produced by extracting it from its compound. This can require a lot of energy and resources, which is why hydrogen technology must be improved to lower its costs. Some processes can also produce greenhouse gas emissions, so it is important to explore and develop technology that will focus on low to zero emissions. For example, hydrogen can be renewable or decarbonized using renewable or carbon-free electricity, such as wind turbines.
- We believe hydrogen can contribute to a resilient, sustainable energy future in two ways:
- Existing hydrogen applications can use alternative, cleaner production methods and from a more diverse set of energy sources.
- Hydrogen can potentially be used in a wide range of new applications as an alternative to current fuels and inputs or as a complement to the greater use of electricity in these applications.
While hydrogen is a cleaner form of energy than other sources, it is currently more expensive to produce than natural gas. Continued investments in research and development, federal funding from the Department of Energy, and technological advancements are expected to increase the adoption and use of hydrogen as an energy resource, making it more cost competitive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is hydrogen the only decarbonization pathway that you are exploring?
Thank you for your response.
Will using hydrogen as a source of energy lead to water scarcity?
No, while water produces hydrogen through electrolysis, other methods exist to produce hydrogen without using water, such as pyrolysis or steam methane reforming with carbon capture. In addition, when hydrogen is burned, the byproduct is water.
Thank you for your response.
Doesn’t hydrogen cost much more than gas or electric power in home heating, cooking and other residential uses?
Today, hydrogen does cost more than natural gas or electric power. Continued investments across the industry, federal programs, technology enhancements and increased adoption is expected to bring that cost down so that it is more cost-competitive to natural gas.
Thank you for your response.
Can I get hydrogen in my home to use as a fuel source?
We are still testing through this multi-phase hydrogen pilot. While NiSource’s Columbia Gas and NIPSCO customers cannot directly receive hydrogen or a blending of hydrogen today, we believe the work we are doing will allow us to provide hydrogen in the future.
Thank you for your response.
What does it mean when hydrogen is called an “energy carrier”?
Like electricity, hydrogen is an energy carrier that must be produced from another substance. Hydrogen can be produced—separated—from a variety of sources, including water, fossil fuels, or biomass and used as a source of energy or fuel. Hydrogen has the highest energy content of any common fuel by weight (about three times more than gasoline), but it has the lowest energy content by volume (about four times less than gasoline). It takes more energy to produce hydrogen (by separating it from other elements in molecules) than hydrogen provides when converted to useful energy. However, hydrogen is helpful as an energy source/fuel because it has a high energy content per unit of weight, which is why it is used as a rocket fuel and in fuel cells to produce electricity on some spacecraft.
Thank you for your response.
Does hydrogen emit less carbon than gas when burned?
Hydrogen does not emit any carbon when burned, only energy and water.
Thank you for your response.
Where does hydrogen come from? How is it produced?
Hydrogen is most commonly produced through steam methane reforming of natural gas or coal, but it can also be produced without emitting carbon through pyrolysis or electrolysis.
Thank you for your response.
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