As part of a project at Krummhörn in East Frisia, Uniper is seeking to demonstrate the full potential of green hydrogen storage in salt caverns. The Land of Lower Saxony is set to play a major role in this field.

After HyStorage, which involves storage in porous rock in Bavaria, Uniper is now launching the HPC (Hydrogen Pilot Cavern) project in Krummhörn, Lower Saxony. Olaf Lies, Lower Saxony Minister for Economic Affairs, Transport, Construction and Digitisation, and Michael Lewis, Uniper’s CEO attended the launch. The project is of great interest to the local population as well, since 300 people came to visit the facilities. 

Uniper set up a pilot cavern with a volume of around 3,000 cubic metres, using an existing borehole on the Krummhörn site. With a total storage volume of almost 500,000 cubic metres of green hydrogen, this facility will be one of the first of its kind in Germany. A gas-tightness test is scheduled for 24 September. Uniper will then proceed with the initial gas filling and operation of the demonstration plant with various injection and withdrawal cycles over the coming year.

Scaling-up straight after

This will also be an opportunity to check the compatibility of the equipment and materials with hydrogen in real-life conditions. The quality of the hydrogen stored will be tested as well.

“In the future, the Krummhörn storage site is to be expanded to provide the market with a storage capacity of 250 GWh of hydrogen” says Doug Waters, Managing Director of Uniper Energy Storage. “In total, Uniper Energy Storage plans to develop salt caverns for the underground storage of hydrogen with a planned capacity of up to 600 GWh by 2030. To this end, existing and new sites along the hydrogen core network in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia are being investigated.”

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Article written by Laurent Meillaud and translated by Logan King