SHARED (Smart Hydrogen And Resilient Energy Decarbonisation) is exploring whether low‑cost hydrogen production and storage can help improve resilience in rural communities. These areas are more likely to include customers who qualify under Ofgem’s Worst Served Customer (WSC) scheme due to the structure of the electricity network. As rural regions decarbonise, rising electricity demand could worsen existing resilience challenges. However, reinforcing the network in these locations would be costly and time‑consuming, making alternative solutions especially valuable.
What is the project about?
Rural communities typically experience more supply interruptions due to the design of electricity infrastructure in these areas. The impact of outages is often greater as well, particularly during extreme weather events, because rural network topology and longer distances from operational depots can increase the time it takes to restore power. These regions are largely served by long‑distance high‑voltage overhead lines, making traditional resilience measures both costly and difficult to deliver. Consenting and legal requirements can also significantly delay infrastructure upgrades. As a result, there is a need for solutions that can improve network reliability more quickly and economically.
SHARED proposes an alternative approach that integrates low‑cost hydrogen technologies with sensor‑driven software control. The system will use electricity from the network during periods of low demand to produce hydrogen via water electrolysis, storing it on site in a low‑pressure system. During a supply interruption, the stored hydrogen can be converted back into electricity through a fuel cell and fed remotely into the local network. This approach is designed to reduce the impact of interruptions, and ultimately lower the number of Worst Served Customers, by enabling faster, remote restoration of power.
How we’re doing it
In our Discovery phase, the project established the feasibility of the solution. The Alpha phase will build on this foundation by:
Identifying suitable rural sites for deployment.
Building and characterising prototypes to validate system performance.
Scoping and designing the management, control systems, and required DNO integration.
Advancing the economic assessment with siting analysis that reflects the characteristics of each rural secondary substation.
Finalising the concept design informed by the outputs of the siting analysis.
What makes it innovative
SHARED combines low‑cost electrolysers with novel hybrid storage and compression technologies to deliver a safe, compact, and modular hydrogen‑based resilience system. Key innovative features include:
Use of novel materials that eliminate reliance on rare‑earth metals.
Integrated safety through low‑cost wireless detectors and automatic shut‑off mechanisms.
Remote “dial‑home” monitoring for continuous oversight.
A modular system architecture that supports deployment from a single home to entire communities.
Thanks to this modular approach, SHARED can enhance resilience across a wide range of interruption durations:
Milliseconds: UPS ride‑through capability and protection against transient faults.
Minutes to hours: Constraint relief and demand‑side response support.
Hours to days: Storm recovery and extended outage protection.
This solution offers resilience benefits that are not economically achievable through traditional network reinforcement or short‑duration energy storage technologies. To date, no DNO has deployed hydrogen generation and storage specifically for resilience purposes, primarily due to high technology costs and limited maturity. SHARED aims to overcome these barriers and demonstrate a viable, scalable path forward.
What we’re learning
At the end of Alpha, the project will have achieved its main objectives of:
Developing the requirements and initial design for the solution.
Quantifying the economic, financial, and commercial business case.
Shortlisting suitable network locations for a future demonstrator trial.
As this is a new technology for network resilience, the Alpha phase has been intentionally structured to allow key insights to feed iteratively into the design process. This approach ensures that the final concept is scalable, feasible, and cost‑effective. Inputs incorporated throughout Alpha include business requirements, siting analysis outputs, supply‑chain engagement, and a review of potential commercial and operational models.
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