Mid & East Antrim Council

Ballymena

2025

Ecos Centre is home to the gas safe blended hydrogen training lab. It is multi award winning training facility, the first one in the UK in 2021.

Open and used by Queens University, NRC Ballymena, Newtownabbey and Coleraine, Mannock Ltd, Wrightbus, Ulster University, Belfast Met

CCTS and many other gas safe training organisations who cannot provide training on blended gas owing to safety constraints.

Implementation
Gas supply companies, Firmus, PNG, SGN, and from GB and Ireland, Bord gas, North Wales gas, Cadent Northern Gas Supplies.

The academy allows gas safe personnel to discover how the addition of hydrogen will affect gas appliances, without such upskilling it would be impossible for the gas industry to legally permit works on blended gas in the network.

The challenge for BSH was to design, manufacture and deliver a training facility ahead of any such regulations on hydrogen or blended hydrogen and make it meaningful and challenging for trainees and the skilled alike. To meet the challenge we were aided by Sime UK and Powrmatic UK who provided the equipment used to demonstrate the use.

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Results

Leak detection was provided and pipe integrity testing included.

The 1st officially recognised hydrogen training curriculum in the UK was created by NRC Ballymena based around our training provided inhouse by our team. For the 1st twelve months whilst the instructors gained familiarity with the systems, BSH put approx. 200 interested parties through the lab providing demonstrations and allowing people to understand what the systems did and how they worked. The room is totally self sufficient with training boilers, air heater, hybrid air source heat pump gas boiler and an absorption chiller for summer training.

“BSH manufactured the H2 Gas Safe Training Lab for Mid and East Antrim Borough Council in 2022 as part of the Hydrogen Training Academy project, a public/private skills training initiative led by Council and supported by a range of academic partners. The H2 Gas Safe Lab, the first of its kind at that time on the island of Ireland, was critical in providing a practical training environment for the development and delivery of accredited hydrogen skills training courses at Levels 3 and 5. The H2 Gas Safe Lab has also acted as an important demonstration environment to showcase low carbon heating solutions to Government, Academia and a range of public and private sector entities. The Hydrogen Training Academy project has also been recognised with a number of awards, including for sustainability, innovation and asset management linked to the lab. The Hydrogen Training Academy project continues to be delivered successfully today and BSH are an important part of the ongoing programme, providing technical expertise and maintenances services associated with the H2 Gas Safe Lab.”
— Connor O’Dornan, Senior Strategic Projects Officer, Mid & East Antrim Borough Council