Underground Hydrogen Storage in Salt Caverns

Recording of Thursday, June 20, 2024 | The smarter E Europe 2024 | Exhibition Program | Language: English | Duration: 21:09 .

StorEnergy Presents Underground Hydrogen Storage in Northern Germany to Decarbonize Heavy Industries

Gunnar Assmann from StorEnergy presented on underground hydrogen storage in salt caverns, emphasizing the transition from natural gas to hydrogen. StorEnergy is a major French-based energy company involved in electricity, gas, and networks with plans to significantly increase renewable electricity generation by 2030. The project focuses on Haasefeld near Hamburg, part of their six German underground storage locations. Historical salt deposits from the ancient Zechstein Sea make Northern Germany ideal for such storage due to its plasticity and containment properties. Gunnar Assmann detailed how these caverns are created at depths of 1000-1500 meters using boreholes and compressor units for injecting gas into them. This infrastructure has been successfully used for natural gas over decades and will now be adapted for hydrogen. He highlighted the need to replace depleting natural gas fields with hydrogen while utilizing existing pipeline infrastructures where possible. The shift aims at decarbonizing industries that cannot rely solely on electricity, particularly steel and glass manufacturing sectors rather than household heating which dominated natural gas consumption patterns traditionally marked by seasonal variations.

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Speaker

Gunnar Assmann
Projekt Lead Hydrogen Storage
Storengy Deutschland GmbH
Germany

Talk of session: Hydrogen Carriers, Transport, Storage and Energy Buffers

It is foreseeable, hydrogen and its derivatives will be shipped to Europe in the years to come and prompt the path of the energy carrier. What form will play what role amongst to option on the table? It still looks like an open race.