French enterprises to carry out underground hydrogen storage pilot

According to the French "Le Figaro" website reported on September 18, the future of energy in France and even Europe is being rehearsed to some extent in Ettre, Ontario. Storange, a subsidiary of France's Enges Group, is testing the principle of underground hydrogen storage. The first well of HyPSTER, a hydrogen storage pilot project, was completed on the 15th. The technology has been proven in natural gas, but for hydrogen, which has a smaller molecule, the challenges are very different.

For the €15 million project, Engge and its eight partners have received €5 million in support from the European Union. "This project paves the way for the industrialisation of large-scale hydrogen storage," concluded Katrin MacGregor, CEO of ENGE Group. Charlotte Lulay, chief executive of Storangi, said: "Don't expect to see anything eye-catching. It all happened 1,500 meters below our feet."

Looking out at the surrounding countryside, it is hard to imagine that a small technological revolution is taking place here. The site has been in operation since 1980 and is primarily dedicated to the storage of natural gas in salt caverns. Today, it can store as much gas as the city of Lyon consumes in a year. In the future, hydrogen will be stored here.

In the pilot project, three tonnes of hydrogen will be produced, injected and extracted to control and analyse the reaction of the salt cavern and its interaction with the gas. Subsequently, the storage capacity will be increased to 50 tons on an industrial scale, then 2,000 tons, and finally 20,000 tons.

Hydrogen is produced on site: the project installed a 1 MW electrolyser a few hundred meters from the first storage facility. Currently, electricity comes from renewable sources.

Storangi is considering installing solar panels and possibly wind turbines as soon as possible. Angie Group's local land resources are sufficient to achieve this goal and provide locally produced renewable electricity for the electrolyzer.

The majority of the hydrogen market is dominated by manufacturers that use hydrogen to decarbonize their production activities, such as Total Energy. The Greater Lyon region and the "Chemical Valley" are large natural markets for Etterre hydrogen. Initially, hydrogen will be transported by truck, and special loading equipment will be built locally. In the medium to long term, this could be complemented by additional pipelines, creating a wider network across the region.

The development of the electrolytic hydrogen production industry is one of the priorities identified in the preparation of France's energy climate strategy. The proposal was submitted last week to Agnes Panier-Luneche, France's minister for Energy transition. The proposals include the deployment of 6.5 gigawatts of decarbonized production capacity by 2030 and at least 10 gigawatts by 2035, using renewable or nuclear power.

Angie Group and its subsidiary Storangi are also preparing for the energy transition. Natural gas consumption is expected to decline. However, replacing natural gas with hydrogen will not happen overnight.