Enabling Large-Scale Hydrogen Underground Storage in Porous Media
R&D Focus Areas:
Underground storage
Lead Organisation:
Curtin University
Funding:
Future Energy Exports CRC (Research Project)
Status:
Active
Start date:
April 2022
Project summary description:
Large-scale hydrogen storage in the subsurface has been proposed in existing salt caverns, depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers. Compared to surface hydrogen storage, underground hydrogen storage has benefits of safety and scale brought by the solid caprock sealing, large storage capacities, lower cost than surface tanks, and high availability in existing underground storage sites. However, given that salt caverns may not be widely available for underground hydrogen storage in Australia, in particular along the coastal line, saline aquifers and depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs, particularly gas reservoirs, have been widely considered for large-scale and cyclical short-term (weeks to months) hydrogen storage. While the expectations of large-scale hydrogen storage in porous media are high, the feasibility and potential risks remain untested and unquantified.
This project aims at enabling the hydrogen underground storage capacity in Australia by developing a framework (a screening tool) for hydrogen underground storage. This screening tool will relate hydrogen-brine-rock interactions, microbial reactions, geology and petrophysical properties and exiting number of wells and materials to caprock sealing and integrity, wellbore integrity, cycling process of hydrogen, hydrogen conversion and contamination, etc. This tool will be used to select and evaluate the potential of hydrogen storage in depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs in the region of Katnook Gas Processing Facility (owned and operated by Beach Energy).
In parallel with these activities, laboratory and modelling studies will be conducted in a PhD project to understand the impact of H2-Brine-Shale interactions on caprock integrity and sealing capacity.
Further information:
Enabling Large-Scale Hydrogen Underground Storage in Porous Media (21.RP2.0091) – Future Energy Exports (fenex.org.au)
Latest report available from the Future Energy Exports CRC website https://www.fenex.org.au/outreach/reports/
Reviewed: October 2024