Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd., Japan's largest city gas supplier, said recently that it has started a pilot project for methanation, a technology that helps decarbonize city gas, and plans to use renewable energy by March next year. Green hydrogen in energy trials.
Methanation converts hydrogen and carbon dioxide into synthetic methane as a replacement for the main component of natural gas. This is thought to be a way to use carbon dioxide as a raw material that could help the company become carbon neutral by 2050.
Methane has many uses, including as a fuel in power plants or homes to generate heat and electricity, and as a raw material for the chemical industry.
For the first phase of trials aimed at producing 12.5 standard cubic meters per hour of synthetic methane, Tokyo Gas has installed a Hitachi Zosen methanation unit at its research center in Yokohama, near Tokyo, and has begun producing fuels from external sources of hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
The company plans to install a water electrolysis unit produced by Britain's ITM Power Company by March next year and use renewable hydrogen to produce synthetic methane. It will also utilize carbon dioxide emitted and captured by nearby factories or customers.
Tokyo Gas aims to replace about 1 percent of the city's natural gas with synthetic methane by 2030. The trial will be scaled up in the late 2020s to produce 400 standard cubic meters per hour, followed by an overseas demonstration in 2030 at 20,000 standard cubic meters per hour.
Tokyo Gas is also trying to build a global supply chain for synthetic methane, conducting feasibility studies with Sumitomo Corp. and Petronas in Malaysia, and with Mitsubishi Corp. in North America and Australia Research
