Abstract |
The ETI has completed an assessment of the potential of using salt caverns, traditionally used to store natural gas, to store hydrogen (H2) for power generation when the demand for electricity peaks daily. The use of these caverns would reduce the investment in clean power station capacity that the nation requires to build, and lift the average efficiency of the country’s responsive power system.- The ETI has completed an assessment of the potential of using salt caverns, traditionally used to store natural gas, to store hydrogen (H2) for power generation when the demand for electricity peaks daily. The use of these caverns would reduce the investment in clean power station capacity that the nation requires to build, and lift the average efficiency of the country’s responsive power system.
- Using salt caverns to store hydrogen has the potential to deliver clean, grid-scale load-following energy supplies
- The potential to store hydrogen changes inflexible gasification and reforming technology into competitive, highly flexible options for load following fossil fuel, biomass and waste fed power stations
- The UK has sufficient salt bed resource to provide tens of ‘GWe’ to the grid on a load following basis from H2 turbines
- Technologies making hydrogen from methane, such as steam methane reforming (SMR) and autothermal reforming (ATR) need to improve if they are to be competitve in power production from 100% hydrogen storage configurations – much of this improvement is already in hand in national clean fossil fuel, Carbon Capture and Storage and turbine technology development programs
- Pre-combustion technology with storage offers flexibility to produce hydrogen and reduce the overall power generation investments
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