Uniper opens pilot green hydrogen cavern in Germany

German energy group Uniper SE (ETR:UN0) has inaugurated a pilot green hydrogen cavern at a site in Lower Saxony which is expected to pave the way for the development of storage solutions on a commercial scale.

The Krummhörn pilot cavern with a geometric volume of some 3,000 cubic metres has the capacity to hold nearly 500,000 standard cubic metres of green hydrogen. The surface equipment for injection is already in place. Trial operations will begin following a gas tightness test scheduled for September 24, 2024, Uniper said on Tuesday.

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Over the next year, the project will focus on testing equipment and materials for hydrogen compatibility under real-world conditions. Throughout the project's duration, insights will be gathered on the quality of the stored hydrogen, as well as on thermodynamics and rock mechanics.

The Krummhörn cavern complements the nearby Uniper site in Wilhelmshaven through the "Green Wilhelmshaven" project, and benefits from its strategic proximity to the North Sea, its connections to the gas and electricity grids, and soon, the new hydrogen core network.

"In the future, the Krummhörn storage site is to 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," commented Uniper Energy Storage's managing director Doug Waters.

"To this end, existing and new sites along the hydrogen core network in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia are being investigated," Waters added.