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Clean Hydrogen Partnership
  • Project

Hydrogen Storage In European Subsurface

Renewable hydrogen combined with large scale underground storage enables transportation of energy through time, balancing out the impacts of variable renewable energy production. While storing pure hydrogen in salt caverns has been practiced since the 70s in Europe, it has never been carried out anywhere in depleted fields or aquifers.

Technical developments are needed to validate these two solutions. As subsurface technical feasibility studies for a future hydrogen storage in depleted field or aquifer will be site-specific, as for other geology related activities, HyStories will provide developments applicable to a wide range of possible future sites: the addition of H2-storage relevant characteristics in reservoir databases at European scale; reservoir and geochemical modelling for cases representative of European subsurface, and tests of this representativeness by comparing it with results obtained with real storage sites models; and lastly an extensive sampling and microbiological lab experiment programme to cover a variety of possible conditions.

Complementarily, techno-economic feasibility studies will provide insights into underground hydrogen storage for decision makers in government and industry. Modelling of the European energy system will first define the demand for hydrogen storage. Environmental and Societal impact studies will be developed. For a given location and hydrogen storage demand, a high-level cost assessment for development of each of the competing geological storage options at that location will be estimated, and the sites will be ranked based on techno-economic criteria developed within the project. Finally, several case studies will enable consideration of the implementation of potential projects, notably by considering their economic interest.

This will provide substantial insight into the suitability for implementing such storage across EU and enable the proposition of an implementation plan.

Topic:

FCH-02-5-2020: Underground storage of renewable hydrogen in depleted gas fields and other geological stores

Coordinator:

GEOSTOCK SAS FR

Other participating organisations:

MICRO PRO GMBHDE
NORCE NORWEGIAN RESEARCH CENTRE ASNO
UNITED KINGDOM RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONUK
Ludwig-Boelkow-Systemtechnik GmbHDE
CO2GEONET - RESEAU D'EXCELLENCE EUROPEEN SUR LE STOCKAGE GEOLOGIQUE DE CO2FR
GEOINZENIRING DRUZBA ZA GEOLOSKI INZENIRING DOOSI
FUNDACION PARA EL DESARROLLO DE LAS NUEVAS TECNOLOGIAS DEL HIDROGENO EN ARAGONES
SVEUCILISTE U ZAGREBU RUDARSKO-GEOLOSKO-NAFTNI FAKULTETHR
GEOLOGISCHE BUNDESANSTALTAT
INSTITUT ROYAL DES SCIENCES NATURELLES DE BELGIQUEBE
INSTYTUT GOSPODARKI SUROWCAMI MINERALNYMI I ENERGIA PANPL
INSTITUTO GEOLÓGICO Y MINERO DE ESPAÑAES
ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXISEL
Geological Survey of Denmark and GreenlandDK
INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE-DEZVOLTARE PENTRU GEOLOGIE SI GEOECOLOGIE MARINA-GEOECOMARRO
GLOWNY INSTYTUT GORNICTWAPL
CESKA GEOLOGICKA SLUZBACZ
ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI OCEANOGRAFIA E DI GEOFISICA SPERIMENTALEIT
MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITYTR
TALLINNA TEHNIKAÜLIKOOLEE
MONTANUNIVERSITAET LEOBENAT
BUREAU DE RECHERCHES GEOLOGIQUES ET MINIERESFR

Project factsheet

  • 27 JANUARY 2025
HYSTORIES factsheet