SSE, Equinor plan 320GWh hydrogen storage site for UK

LONDON (ICIS)–One of the largest UK hydrogen storage sites is set to be developed at a natural gas storage facility at Aldbrough, UK utility SSE and oil and gas major Equinor announced on 15 July. The project will have a potential online date by 2028.

The initial plans outline potential storage capacity of 320GWh, with an aim to support hydrogen initiatives in the Humber region.

This could supply hydrogen to SSE Thermal and Equinor’s Keady Hydrogen 900MW power station, which has a maximum capacity of 1,900MW.

In theory the Aldbrough site could supply Keadby Hydrogen for max generation over a full one-week period.

The Aldbrough storage site consists of nine caverns and can hold 195 million cubic metres (mcm) of natural gas, roughly 2.2TWh. SSE told ICIS that the basis of the Aldbrough storage site would initially work on converting four caverns, with each holding around 80GWh.

“There’s definitely potential for future expansion given the capacity of the site,” SSE told ICIS.

With full conversion of the nine caverns, capacity of the site could reach 720GWh.

Current UK electricity storage amounts to less than 30GWh (including pumped hydro, which accounts for 96% of power storage in the UK), according to information from National Grid.

Equinor is planning to have 1.8GW of blue hydrogen production capacity online by 2030 within the Humber region.

UK HYDROGEN STORAGE POTENTIAL

The Aldbrough site would mark one of the largest hydrogen storage facilities in the UK, and offers vital flexibility for potential users of hydrogen to access low-carbon supply.

Storage will also be a key component to green hydrogen initiatives that could rely on intermittent renewable generation – meaning hydrogen production could peak and drop at different times to high and low demand.

UK transmission system operator (TSO) National Grid ESO released its 2021 future energy scenarios (FES) plan on 12 July which outlines energy development up to 2050 based on its modelling.

The FES document outlines three scenarios: consumer transformation, system transformation and leading the way.

Under consumer transformation and leading the way, hydrogen storage capacity by 2050 is roughly equivalent to UK natural gas storage capacity today.

In system transformation capacity was forecast much higher, totalling 51TWh by 2050. Also, under this scenario storage capacity could reach 10TWh by 2035 and 25TWh by 2040.

Under all three, capacity reaches around 1-2TWh by 2030, meaning Aldbrough’s potential to expand could support National Grid’s projections.

Outside of the Aldbrough site’s potential for hydrogen storage, UK storage operator Storengy is also exploring hydrogen storage. Storengy operates the UK’s largest storage site, Stublach, which has a capacity of 400mcm (4.45TWh). The operator is exploring hydrogen storage under its centurion project.

Centurion assumes that the average capacity of the 20 Storengy caverns, which have a depth of around 500m compared with the Aldbrough 2000m, would be around 40GWh, meaning the operator could store 800GWh of hydrogen.

British utility Centrica previously told ICIS that it is exploring converting its decommissioned Rough natural gas storage site to hold hydrogen.

The site has potential to hold 10TWh of hydrogen, Centrica told ICIS. The development of the site would require an investment of around £650m, rising up to £1.0-1.5bn after factoring in required volume of cushion gas.