Performance Assessment of Underground Gas Storage for Potential Hydrogen Storage in the Netherlands

Many energy transition studies mention hydrogen as one of the candidates to replace natural gas in the Netherlands. However, the future production of hydrogen will primarily depend on the variability of hydrogen production from renewables (wind, solar) and/or the import of natural gas or hydrogen. In order to reduce the dependency on the fluctuating production from renewables and import, large amounts of hydrogen may need to be stored to balance supply and demand.

While there is plenty of experience on underground (natural) gas storage (UGS), knowledge on underground hydrogen storage (UHS) is still limited and mostly related to salt caverns. In this study, we performed a nodal analysis to quantify and compare the differences in performances between UHS and UGS. For that we quantify the inflow and outflow performances of the reservoir-wellbore system, storage capacity, and operational limitations using an in-house Gas Storage Performance tool (GaSP-tool). As a case study we used three UGS facilities in the Netherlands. This allows us to validate our predictions on UGS, and investigate the factors determining the performance of UHS. The results from this study will help to assess the potential for redevelopment of UGS, or natural gas reservoirs, into UHS as energy buffers.