“Salt caverns are a promising alternative for storing large volumes of hydrogen”
The H2SALT initiative is creating technological solutions to make it possible to store green hydrogen in bulk in salt caverns.
The transformation to a low-carbon economy requires infrastructures that can manage surplus renewables and ensure a continuous supply to industry. However, despite its potential as an energy carrier, there are still no well-established infrastructures for storing hydrogen on a large scale. This limits the ability to efficiently manage renewable production and industrial demand and poses significant challenges in terms of the safety, integrity and durability of materials in contact with the gas.
Salt caverns are emerging as one of the most promising alternatives for storing large volumes of hydrogen in a safe, cost-effective manner.
- Developing them requires a deeper understanding of how the gas behaves in these geological formations, improvements in the design of cavities and advances in the materials, tubular systems and auxiliary installations specifically adapted to hydrogen.
- Hydrogen can induce phenomena such as embrittlement, permeation and accelerated degradation in certain steels and alloys. Consequently, it is essential to develop and validate material solutions that are capable of retaining their mechanical properties and structural integrity under conditions of pressure, cycling and prolonged exposure.
H2SALT Project
The aim of H2SALT is to get round these technological and knowledge limitations, which are still evident in Europe, by creating scientific and industrial solutions to speed up the development of underground hydrogen storage systems. TECNALIA is helping by providing experience in the behaviour of hydrogen, and the compatibility and characterisation of materials, which are key elements in ensuring the safety and integrity of these infrastructures.
- The consortium is coordinating the development of solutions tailored to the requirements of storing hydrogen underground, including the design of tubular systems, critical components, auxiliary installations and safe operational strategies.
- The project will characterise various salt formations on the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the conceptual design of caverns and the injection and extraction systems required to operate them, by integrating advanced criteria from the initial phases for selecting, validating and testing how materials behave in the presence of hydrogen.
- These breakthroughs represent a decisive step towards implementing underground storage facilities in the future that will provide stability to the system and position the Basque Country as a European leader in hydrogen-related technologies and the development of advanced materials for critical infrastructures.
Participating companies
H2SALT is co-funded by the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and the European Union-NextGenerationEU, with a consortium coordinated by TEAM Ingeniería y Consultoría. Companies such as TUBACEX, Tubos Reunidos, Tamoin and Iberdrola are also involved, along with the Basque Energy Cluster and Siderex, in collaboration with IGME-CSIC and TECNALIA.