ETI appoints Atkins to identify salt caverns suitable for storing hydrogen and gas
25/10/2016 Energy Technologies Institute (ETI)
-€¢ The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) will invest £170,000 in the six month project-€¢ The project builds on earlier ETI work which showed that storing hydrogen in salt caverns could provide a significant contribution to decarbonising the UK's future electricity grid
-€¢ The new project will identify and examine representative salt caverns in Cheshire, Teesside and East Yorkshire that could store hydrogen to be used in power generation.
Atkins will work closely with the UK's leading cavern storage operators, including Storengy, SSE and SABIC, who will provide critical data and technical expertise to assist in the development of hydrogen storage models for each of the selected caverns.
The ETI has selected Atkins to deliver a new project which will examine in further detail the potential for storing hydrogen and hydrogen gas mixtures underground in salt caverns which can then be used for power generation in gas turbines when the demand for electricity is high.
The six month project follows on from a report it published last year, highlighting the potential role hydrogen storage could play in a future clean, responsive power system.
The report focussed on hydrogen generation from fossil fuels, biomass/waste gasification or the steam reforming of methane, all with carbon capture and storage (CCS). The benefit from using a store and a responsive gas turbine it that it greatly improves the flexibility of power output to the grid, whilst allowing the hydrogen generator and CCS plant, to operate at peak efficiency.
The report highlighted how a single H2 cavern could cater for the peak energy demands and fluctuations of a whole city.
There are over 30 large salt caverns in use in the UK today storing natural gas for the power and heating market. Many of these could potentially be re-used for hydrogen storage or new caverns constructed in the extensive salt fields which are deep underground in many parts of the UK.
For more information, please contact:
Energy Technologies Institute (ETI)
Holywell Building
Holywell Way
Loughborough
LE11 3UZ
Tel: +44 (0)1509 202020
Web: www.eti.co.uk
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