Posted on 22 Feb 2022
Swedish partners Vattenfall, SSAB and LKAB are halfway through the construction of rock cavern storage facility for green hydrogen in Luleå, as part of the HYBRIT green steel project.
The SEK 252 million ($26.8m) storage facility will enable the partners to take advantage of high renewables supply at times of lower demand. The large pilot scale project will have capacity to store 100 cubic metres of green hydrogen. At full scale, the potential capacity stands at 100,000-120,000 cubic metres or 100 gigawatt-hours of hydrogen. This should be enough to run a full-size steel mill for three to four days, according to the companies.
The plan is for the 30-metre-deep facility to start operations by the summer and for tests to continue until 2024. Hydrogen will be stored at a pressure of up to 250 bar. Developers want to test if the hydrogen supply can cope with the variations in pressure.
The lined rock cavern (LRC) technology chosen for the storage facility has been used to store natural gas for decades, but this will be the first time with hydrogen gas, Kallanish learns from Vattenfall. Other than increase efficiency and potential cost savings, storing hydrogen will help stabilise the electrical system, as it reduces the risk of overloading.
Green hydrogen produced by electrolysers will be transported via pipeline to and from the cavern. This infrastructure is already in place. The emission-free gas will be used both as a direct reductant and as a fuel to power iron and steel production.
Source:Kallanish
