UOA Researchers Find Potential Solution For Large-scale Hydrogen Storage

Article written by GEOFF MCMASTER

To scale up the production of hydrogen — a major goal of Alberta’s Hydrogen Road Map — the province will need a place to store large quantities of the fuel.

Petroleum engineering researcher Hassan Dehghanpour says he may have a solution: enormous underground salt caverns each capable of holding more than 2,000 tonnes of the compressed gas.

Dehghanpour and his team have received $500,000 from Alberta Innovates’ Hydrogen Centre of Excellence to explore the possibility, with at least another $500,000 from industry partners, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Mitacs Accelerate Grants Program.

“To the best of my knowledge, we will be the first lab in Canada testing salt rocks for hydrogen storage,” says Dehghanpour. If all goes well in the lab, field trials will begin in a couple of years, he adds, with storage caverns going into operation in about five years.

A crucial piece of the hydrogen puzzle

According to the Hydrogen Roadmap, the worldwide market for hydrogen is estimated to be worth more than $2.5 trillion per year by 2050, especially in North America, the Asia Pacific region and Europe.

Alberta is aiming to become a leading source of the fuel for local markets and other parts of the world eager to decarbonize, while also reducing its own carbon footprint. The province is already Canada’s largest producer of hydrogen, given its use for decades in upgrading bitumen to synthetic crude oil.

For the past 50 years, more than 100 salt caverns in Alberta have already been used to store natural gas and other hydrocarbons, but hydrogen presents unique challenges, says Dehghanpour. Its molecules are smaller — the smallest of all elements — making it potentially more capable of penetrating cavern walls, and the gas is more explosive.

After spending years in the hydraulic fracturing industry, Dehghanpour says he and his industry partners are confident natural gas caverns can be repurposed for hydrogen. With the transition to large-scale hydrogen production, sufficient storage capacity will be crucial to hedge against fluctuations in supply and demand.

“If down the road we convert green electricity from wind and solar to hydrogen, we probably won’t need that much for residential heating during the summer — the excess has to go somewhere.”