Uniper’s Hydrogen Pilot Cavern Krummhörn demonstration plant has been officially opened. Trial operation began with a gas tightness test on 24 September, and the planned first gas filling. The pilot will be testing the full use of a salt cavern specially built for the storage of green hydrogen under operational conditions.
Michael Lewis, Uniper CEO, commented: “HPC Krummhörn is taking on a pioneering role here and fits seamlessly into our strategy. However, to ensure that it does not stop at the pilot plant stage, industry needs a reliable long-term regulatory framework based on market-based mechanisms and accompanying investment incentives.”
Olaf Lies, Lower Saxony’s minister for Economic Affairs, Transport, Construction and Digitalisation.said: “The hydrogen pilot cavern project in Krummhörn is a project that is attracting a lot of attention. You can count on one hand the number of locations worldwide where hydrogen is stored in caverns. Essential experience can now be gathered here that can pave the way for large-scale and commercial hydrogen storage.”
It is intended that the Krummhörn site will be expanded to provide the market with a storage capacity of 250 GWh of hydrogen in a first step. 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.
The creation of the pilot cavern in Krummhörn with a geometric volume of approximately 3000 cubic metres was completed by using solution mining at an existing borehole.
The next step, once approved, will be the initial gas filling and the operation of the demonstration plant with various injection and withdrawal cycles in the coming year. During the entire project period, equipment and materials are to be tested for hydrogen compatibility in a real environment and experience is to be gained about the quality of the stored hydrogen, thermodynamics and rock mechanics. Further technical components will therefore be installed on the operating site of the Krummhörn storage facility. This includes a hydrogen test facility that allows to determine the gas quality in various realistic injection and withdrawal scenarios and to test process technologies for processing the hydrogen. Hydrogen will be analysed to identify changes that might have occurred during the storage phase in the cavern, and moisture and other residuals in the mix will be removed from the hydrogen to make it available for customers.
