Screening the Dutch Gas Fields on Suitability for Hydrogen Storage

Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) will be important in the future energy system because it will help with balancing and optimizing the hydrogen and electricity markets and ensure security of supply. UHS in gas fields offers a great opportunity to store hydrogen on a large scale, with minimal spatial impact. Expectations are that hydrogen storage in gas fields will be needed, as well as storage in salt caverns, to meet the demand for UHS from 2035 onwards. In the Netherlands we are fortunate to have ∼580 oil and gas fields. In this research we determine the suitability of those gas fields for UHS. We do so by applying eleven criteria that are relevant for UHS, which can be determined for the whole portfolio and have publicly available data. The fields are divided into three categories: 1) possibly suitable, 2) possibly not suitable because of identified risks and unknowns or 3) probably not suitable because of many identified risks and unknows. There are 140 fields identified as possibly suitable for UHS, of which 40 are fields located onshore. Further in-depth field and location specific analysis is needed to confirm their suitability for UHS.