German research initiative plans world’s first green hydrogen cavern storage

A German consortium has launched a research platform to store renewable hydrogen in a salt cavern. Following a two-year research project, the partners of the HYPOS alliance plan to build the storage and operate it for research purposes. “The facility would be continental Europe’s first hydrogen cavern storage, and the world’s first cavern storage for green hydrogen made with renewables,” according to a press release. “We can store green hydrogen made with surplus power from renewable generation in the cavern, and discharge it when needed,” explained project manager Stefan Bergander. “This gives us a large seasonal storage system that offers – in combination with power-to-gas – a unique possibility at this scale to avoid bottlenecks in the supply with intermittent renewable energies, and therefore guarantee supply security.”

HYPOS stands for Hydrogen Power Storage & Solutions East Germany and is a network of more than 100 partners. The aim of the project, which receives support from Germany’s research and science ministry, is to produce, store, distribute and widely use green hydrogen in the chemicals, refinery, mobility and energy supply sectors, according to its website. Central Germany is a preferred region for early implementation of innovative hydrogen use due to the already existing infrastructure (pipeline and storage caverns) and various medium-sized enterprises located in the area.