Underground Hydrogen Storage in depleted gas fields for seasonal and short-term storage: A case study

Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) will play a key role in the future energy system by providing flexibility to balance the supply and demand of energy. With this technology, hydrogen can be stored in large quantities in salt caverns and (potentially) in porous reservoirs. While UHS in salt caverns is already operational at four locations in the world, UHS in porous reservoirs is not yet a mature technology and only limited number of field experiences have been realized. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of UHS in the depleted gas field of Roden in the northeast of the Netherlands. We run several simulations to assess the potential to use the reservoir for both seasonal and peak-shaver storage. For this purpose we used operational data from two underground gas storages nearby and hydrogen demand and supply forecasts generated for the Netherlands for the year 2050. We run different scenarios with different storage capacities (working pressure ranges) and investigate the implications of using nitrogen as cushion gas (instead of the more costly hydrogen) and the degree of mixing. Furthermore, we investigate the performance of this field and determine the number of additional wells required when using it as peak-shaver storage.