Completed Clean Energy Engineering

HYDRI - HYDrogen sensoR for Industry

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A hydrogen leak too small to smell or see could turn an industrial boiler room into a bomb. The HYDRI project, led by bp, is building stand-off gas sensors that detect hydrogen from a distance using single-photon detector arrays—quantum sensors sensitive enough to spot a tiny plume of escaping gas before it reaches dangerous concentrations. Hydrogen burns with an invisible flame and leaks through seals that hold natural gas without issue, making current detection methods inadequate for widespread use. Without reliable sensing, hydrogen cannot safely replace natural gas in homes, factories, or transport. The HYDRI consortium combines a major energy company, UK quantum-sensor manufacturers, and academic researchers to design, test, and integrate these detectors into real industrial environments. If successful, the technology would remove a critical safety barrier to hydrogen adoption. That matters for the UK’s energy infrastructure: hydrogen could decarbonise steelmaking, heavy trucking, and domestic heating—sectors that electricity alone struggles to clean up. The sensors themselves could also find use in other gas-detection applications, though the immediate goal is proving they work at scale.

View original technical description
bp is aiming to be a very different company by 2030, and our ambition is to be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner and to help the world get to net zero. A key component of becoming an integrated energy company surrounds low carbon electricity and energy, and within that, creating a distinct position in hydrogen, including aiming for a 10% market share in core markets. The **HYDRI** project, led by bp, aims to develop stand-off gas sensing devices critical to the safe roll-out of hydrogen as a widely used energy source in domestic, industrial, and transportation sectors. It harnesses the UK's world-leading expertise in single-photon detector arrays and quantum-sensor technology products. The HYDRI consortium comprises internationally recognised UK organisations at the forefront of the innovative and high technology sectors they serve, who are extremely well placed to deliver the state-of-the-art modules required for these devices. The consortium is led by a globally recognised end-user of the technology who will steer the performance of the project and carry out extensive testing in a range of high-value application scenarios. Finally, the project benefits from the expertise of the UK's leading academic and research technology organisation, who are performing critical system modelling, design, and integration activities throughout this exciting project.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Visualised Real-Time Monitoring of Hydrogen Gas Leakage and Compositions - Improving a Smart Technology
A High Precision Laser-based Mobile SEnsor for Detection of Trace Amounts of Hydrogen
Improvement & Optimisation of the Smart Hydrogen Leakage and Compositional Monitoring System
HyAI - Hydrogen AI
H2G - a membrane-free, modular electrolyser significantly reducing levelised production costs of green hydrogen through low-cost mass production, scalability, and enhanced robustness.

Original classification

Collaborative R&D

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.