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7/7/2025, 5:07:31 AM
>>28482463
Two alternatives are commonly proposed: First, Salt Caverns. These are very large underground spaces created by injecting water to dissolve geological rock salt. The storage potential of each cavern is large, but they can only be situated where suitable salt formations exist. To take the UK as an example, only areas within Cheshire and East Yorkshire are known to have these formations, so Southeast England, as well as existing industrial clusters in South Wales and in Scotland would be some distance from their nearest storage facility. What this means in practice is that storing hydrogen in salt caverns will mean expensive upgrades to the gas network infrastructure – a consideration which is invariably overlooked by analysis claiming that these caverns offer a low cost per unit of hydrogen stored. If you add in problems with hydrogen purity, slow access, and even slower lead times, it’s tempting to question whether salt caverns are the right storage solution for industrial hydrogen hubs.
At the other end of the scale are Pressurised Metal Vessels. Unlike the caverns these vessels can be located anywhere. But hydrogen storage potential per cylinder is much smaller, and with all the metal required to contain the pressurised hydrogen, they are an expensive option which will take up valuable space on site while presenting a health and safety hazard to nearby (and not so nearby) infrastructure.
Gravitricity is best known for the solid weight gravity-based energy storage technology which we’ll be deploying in old mine shafts. By finding new uses for old coal mines, we’re demonstrating how the infrastructure of the old energy system can be re-used to enable the new. But we’ve always believed that underground spaces have energy storage potential beyond gravity, and so more recently, alongside our gravity technology development programme, we’ve been focussing on how fuel gases, particularly hydrogen, can be stored safely and effectively underground.
Two alternatives are commonly proposed: First, Salt Caverns. These are very large underground spaces created by injecting water to dissolve geological rock salt. The storage potential of each cavern is large, but they can only be situated where suitable salt formations exist. To take the UK as an example, only areas within Cheshire and East Yorkshire are known to have these formations, so Southeast England, as well as existing industrial clusters in South Wales and in Scotland would be some distance from their nearest storage facility. What this means in practice is that storing hydrogen in salt caverns will mean expensive upgrades to the gas network infrastructure – a consideration which is invariably overlooked by analysis claiming that these caverns offer a low cost per unit of hydrogen stored. If you add in problems with hydrogen purity, slow access, and even slower lead times, it’s tempting to question whether salt caverns are the right storage solution for industrial hydrogen hubs.
At the other end of the scale are Pressurised Metal Vessels. Unlike the caverns these vessels can be located anywhere. But hydrogen storage potential per cylinder is much smaller, and with all the metal required to contain the pressurised hydrogen, they are an expensive option which will take up valuable space on site while presenting a health and safety hazard to nearby (and not so nearby) infrastructure.
Gravitricity is best known for the solid weight gravity-based energy storage technology which we’ll be deploying in old mine shafts. By finding new uses for old coal mines, we’re demonstrating how the infrastructure of the old energy system can be re-used to enable the new. But we’ve always believed that underground spaces have energy storage potential beyond gravity, and so more recently, alongside our gravity technology development programme, we’ve been focussing on how fuel gases, particularly hydrogen, can be stored safely and effectively underground.
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