EWE press release from 19 February 2021
"Construction work on a hydrogen test cavern will begin next Monday in Rüdersdorf. This marks the start of a research project for the safe storage of 100 per cent hydrogen at the EWE gas storage site, with which the energy service provider is taking on a pioneering role in Europe.
EWE has already built two of its 37 natural gas caverns in salt rock in Rüdersdorf. The company has been safely storing natural gas in these caverns since 2007. The borehole for a further cavern is already in place. EWE is using this for the leaching of the hydrogen test cavern. With a capacity of 500 cubic metres, the cavern storage facility will have the volume of a detached house. As a first step, EWE is erecting a drilling rig on top of the existing borehole. The work is expected to take a week. EWE will then install and cement in a steel pipe from the surface to a depth of 1,000 metres by the beginning of April. This will securely connect the future test cavern to the surface. EWE is thus creating the basis for the subsequent excavation of the small test cavern.
"As part of the research project, we are particularly hoping to gain insights into the degree of purity of the hydrogen after it has been extracted from the cavern," says EWE project manager Hayo Seeba. This criterion is particularly important for hydrogen applications in the mobility sector. The development of a hydrogen economy is an absolutely necessary step towards a sustainable and climate-friendly energy system. According to Seeba, hydrogen storage systems are particularly important in this context. "They are essential in order to be able to provide hydrogen as an energy source in line with demand," explains the EWE project manager. The gas produced from water using renewable energies has the advantage that, unlike electricity generated from sunlight and wind, for example, it can be stored and transported at any time. "This means that renewable energies can be stored on an industrial scale in the form of hydrogen in the future and used when they are needed," Seeba continues.
EWE is cooperating with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) on the HyCAVmobil project. Among other things, the DLR Institute of Networked Energy Systems is analysing the quality of the hydrogen during storage and after extraction from the cavern.
The findings from the small research cavern should be easily transferable to caverns with 1,000 times the volume. The aim is to use caverns with volumes of 500,000 cubic metres for large-scale hydrogen storage in the future. With 37 salt caverns, EWE alone has 15 per cent of all German cavern storage facilities that could be suitable for storing hydrogen in the future. Hayo Seeba: "This would mean that green hydrogen produced from renewable energies could be stored in large quantities and used as needed, and would become an indispensable component in achieving climate targets."
Media contact:
Nadine Auras
Tel.: 03341 / 382 - 103
Mobile: 0162 / 1331144
Mail:
nadine.auras(at)ewe.de