Large scale hydrogen storage, transport and distribution

Theme lead: dr. Hadi Hajibeygi, Associate Professor 

Main challenges:

• H2 Contamination: maintain the recoverability and purity of the stored hydrogen (including reactive transport, and thermo-chemo-bio-hydro-mechanical process of storage)
• Storage and distribution Integrity: maintain the stability of the reservoir seals and wells for storage and the network system (materials and components) for distribution
• Storage and distribution Performance: optimize the storage and distribution system for safe and reliable supply of energy
• Economics and System Integration: minimize the technoeconomic of storage and distribution, maximize the exergy invested over the exergy returned for the system of distribution and storage
• Planning, Regulation, Safety and Society: tools and guidelines and best practices for safe and responsible H2 storage and distribution; responsible development of the storage and distribution technology and societal embedding.

Ambitions / contributions: enable safe and economical scaling up of storage and distribution of hydrogen in the energy mix.

An attractive property of hydrogen is that it can be stored at different scales, from surface facilities (in the order of MWh) up to the subsurface geological reservoirs (for large-scale TWh). Development of safe, reliable and cost-effective multi-scale storage system fully integrated with the distribution network depends on advancing sciences related to materials and structures (surface-based storage), energy systems, and geoscience characterization, modeling and simulation and monitoring (for subsurface storage). Moreover, societal embedding is as important as technical advancement of the engineering solutions for safe and cost-effective deployments.

Background:

We are advancing the state-of-the-art scientific concepts, methods, and designing strategies in materials, structures and integrated geoscience fields to enable ‘safe, pure, and efficient’ storage of hydrogen at various scales. These include laboratory experiments, mathematical and computational modelling and simulation approaches, geological characterization, and field-scale monitoring. See this short movie from the Admire project for additional information.