Underground hydrogen storage system goes online in Austria

Gas storage operator RAG Austria AG has put into operation a demonstration project in Upper Austria that stores green hydrogen in a natural gas underground reservoir.

The system, completed within two years after the start of the project, is located in the Gampern municipality in northern Austria. It has the capacity to store 4.2 GWh of solar power generated in summer in the form of hydrogen for winter months, RAG said last week. The company says that this is the world's first hydrogen storage system of this kind.

Do you know we have a daily hydrogen newsletter? Subscribe here for free!

The facility will enable the conversion of the excess solar power from around 1,000 single-family homes into hydrogen and store it seasonally.

The results of the Underground Sun Storage demonstration project will help repurpose the existing gas storage facilities for hydrogen and green electricity storage. RAG sees great potential in Austria because of its geological structure and existing storage capacity. This makes it possible to decouple the generation of renewable energy and its short-term consumption and to enable the security of supply all year round, the company said.

RAG Austria's chief executive Markus Mitteregger noted that demand for a seasonal energy transfer in Austria alone is estimated at 10 TWh per year by 2030.