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As the electrification of heat increases and technologies like heat pump adoption grows, it's tempting to assume the gas network can simply be wound down street by street, in line with falling demand. But it’s not as simple as this: network topology, not customer count, decides when decommissioning is actually viable, and the UK gas network is nowhere close to that point today.Sam Wilson, Director of Energy System Operations at Cadent, joins the podcast to explain the engineering reality behind that constraint — and how things like pressure control, storage, and gas injection all factor into it.They cover:
- Why network topology, not customer count, decides when decommissioning is actually viable
- How gas goes from completely odourless at transmission pressure to detectable on your street.
- What it takes to step pressure down from around 90 bar in the transmission system, through off-takes and above ground installations, to roughly 30 millibars at a domestic appliance.
- How line packing turns the pipe network itself into short-duration storage, with operators raising or lowering in-pipe pressure to absorb daily demand swings.
- What's actually limiting how much biomethane and hydrogen can go into the network today, and why hydrogen can be blended in without any changes needed to downstream appliances.
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free hereTranscript available here: You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.Chapters:0:00 Introduction1:09 What people get wrong about the gas network.3:03 From gas field to home boiler: the full journey4:33 UK's four gas distribution networks explained5:15 Transmission pressure: 90 bar and above6:25 Line packing - storing gas inside the pipes7:55 Industrial vs domestic gas pressure needs12:34 Replacing 100-year-old cast iron gas pipes13:56 Biomethane in the gas network17:15 Hydrogen blending: how much the network can take21:22 Getting hydrogen to industrial gas users23:18 Electrification vs the gas network's engineering reality24:26 What happens when homes remove their gas connection25:46 Why decommissioning the gas network isn't linear31:57 Sam Wilson's contrarian take on the energy transitionMusic licensed via Artlist.🔔 Subscribe for more energy market analysis: / @modoenergy 🔗 Follow Modo Energy:→ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/modo-energy→ Twitter/X: x.com/modoenergy
