Renewable hydrogen combined with large scale underground storage enables transportation of energy through time, balancing out the impacts of variable renewable energy production.
As subsurface technical feasibility studies for a future hydrogen storage in depleted field or aquifer will be site-specific, then 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.
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.
While storing pure hydrogen in salt caverns has been practiced since the 1970s in Europe, pure hydrogen storage has not yet been carried out anywhere in depleted fields or aquifers. The EU-funded HyStorIES project will deliver technical developments applicable to a vast range of future aquifer or depleted field sites, and will provide insights into underground hydrogen storage for decisionmakers in government and industry.
WP1 Geological assessment
WP2 Reservoir engineering and geochemistry
WP3 Microbiology
WP4 Material and corrosión
WP5 Modelling of the European energy system
WP6 Impact studies
WP7 Ranking of geological sites
WP8 European case studies
WP9 Major conclusions and implementation plan in the EU