We talk to researcher Dr Aliakbar Hassanpouryouzband about some of the project highlights

The HyStorPor project has shown that subsurface geological storage of hydrogen is possible – an important development for the deployment of intermittent renewable energy.

“In HyStorPor, we initiated a comprehensive, worldwide research effort on hydrogen storage. We believe our initiative represents a pioneering effort in the systematic examination of this important subject,” says Dr Aliakbar Hassanpouryouzband, one of the University of Edinburgh researchers working on the EPSRC-funded three-year project. “Prior to our project, there were limited research initiatives related to hydrogen storage. However, our initiative emerged as one of the primary drivers in advancing the field.”

Being able to store large amounts of hydrogen is key to the energy transition and to the move to renewable sources. When demand is low, wind and solar power can be converted into hydrogen and stored, before being drawn down and turned back into energy when demand is high.

“Initially, we identified different challenges and then delved into different research questions. [Among other things], our research showed that we could store hydrogen safely underground in depleted gas fields where we can seal hydrogen better than natural gas – it is safer to store hydrogen than natural gas from the leakage point of view, “ says Dr Hassanpouryouzband.

“We also identified which reservoirs we should use for storage and the capacity of different types of underground storage sites.”

Journal success

In the course of the project, the team has published 16 journal papers and 10 associated papers. The former include a paper showing that just one large depleted gas field is enough for hydrogen storage for most countries.

“I estimated almost all the giant onshore and offshore fields’ capacity for hydrogen storage and for most of the countries around the world apart perhaps from US and China just one depleted gas field is enough for all their energy storage,” says Dr Hassanpouryouzband.

Thermodynamic software developed

The team also created thermodynamic software which can be used in different sectors of the hydrogen economy to understand the thermodynamic properties of hydrogen when it is mixed with other gases.

“We didn’t know how hydrogen would flow under geological reservoir conditions so we published a paper comparing hydrogen flow properties with methane and nitrogen and also seeing the effect of different parameters such as pressure and salinity. We imaged hydrogen flow in porous media,” says Dr Hassanpouryouzband.

Another challenge was to establish whether hydrogen would react with minerals in the subsurface and how much hydrogen would be consumed by microbes – the team conducted over 300 experiments on mineral/hydrogen reactions. It also published a paper understanding the trapping behaviour of hydrogen during storage - how much will be trapped in the reservoir, not lost to reactions but just trapped in porous media.

“It got to the point that our project made it very clear for industry that geological hydrogen storage is doable,” says Dr Hassanpouryouzband who has also developed several new lab devices to support the team’s research.

“We also delivered many consultancy projects – many companies came to us and asked if we can store hydrogen in specific sites. We’ve developed a methodology for which reservoirs we can store in and how much we can store there.”

European project

In parallel, HyStorPor researchers are also involved in the larger HyUSPRe project which is investigating large-scale hydrogen storage in sub-surface porous media in Europe in partnership with both other research and also industry partners including Shell, Centrica, SNAM and Uniper.

Looking ahead, Dr Hassanpouryouzband says the next stage should be pilot field-scale tests. While hydrogen has already been successfully stored in salt caverns for some time, testing needs to take place in depleted gas fields where the capacity can be 100 times greater.

“We need pilot tests. Hydrogen is viewed as a growing solution. We used to think we don’t have enough space to store it – insufficient storage was one of the main problems for the hydrogen economy. But we have solved a lot of the challenges. The only solution is geological hydrogen storage which was advanced in our project,” he says.

“This is important for renewables. If we can develop storage then we can speed up [the roll out] of renewables. It’s not possible to move forward with renewables without hydrogen.”

List of HyStorPor published journal papers

• Heinemann, N., Wilkinson, M., Adie, K., Edlmann, K., Thaysen, E.M., Hassanpouryouzband, A. and Haszeldine, R.S., 2022. Cushion Gas in Hydrogen Storage—A Costly CAPEX or a Valuable Resource for Energy Crises?. Hydrogen, 3(4), pp.550-563.
• Hassanpouryouzband, A., Adie, K., Cowen, T., Thaysen, E.M., Heinemann, N., Butler, I.B., Wilkinson, M. and Edlmann, K., 2022. Geological hydrogen storage: geochemical reactivity of hydrogen with sandstone reservoirs. ACS Energy Letters, 7(7), pp.2203-2210.
• Thaysen, E.M., Butler, I.B., Hassanpouryouzband, A., Freitas, D., Alvarez-Borges, F., Krevor, S., Heinemann, N., Atwood, R. and Edlmann, K., 2022. Pore-scale imaging of hydrogen displacement and trapping in porous media. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.
• Rezaei, A., Hassanpouryouzband, A., Molnar, I., Derikvand, Z., Haszeldine, R.S. and Edlmann, K., 2022. Relative permeability of hydrogen and aqueous brines in sandstones and carbonates at reservoir conditions. Geophysical Research Letters, 49(12), p.e2022GL099433.
• Heinemann, J.Scafidi, G.Pickup, E.M.Thaysen, A.Hassanpouryouzband, M.Wilkinson, A.K.Satterley, M.G.Booth, K.Edlmann, and R.S.Haszeldine. October 2021. Hydrogen Storage in Saline Aquifers: The Role of Cushion Gas for Injection and Production. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.09.174
• Thaysen, E.M, McMahon, S., StrobelbIan, G.J., Butler, I.B., Ngwenya, B.T., Heinemann, N., Wilkinson, M., Hassanpouryouzband, A., McDermott, C.I. and Edlmann, K. November 2021. Estimating microbial growth and hydrogen consumption in hydrogen storage in porous media. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Volume 151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111481
• Hassanpouryouzband, E. Joonaki, K. Edlmann and R. Stuart Haszeldine. May 2021. Offshore geological storage of hydrogen: Is this our best option to achieve net-zero? ACS Energy Letters https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.1c00845
• Mouli-Castillo, J., Heinemann N, Edlmann K. February 2021. Mapping geological hydrogen storage capacity and regional heating demands: An applied UK case study, Applied Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.116348
• Niklas Heinemann, Juan Alcalde, Johannes M. Miocic, Suzanne J. T. Hangx, Jens Kallmeyer, Christian Ostertag-Henning, Aliakbar Hassanpouryouzband, Eike M. Thaysen, Gion J. Strobel, Mark Wilkinson, Cornelia Schmidt-Hattenberger, Katriona Edlmann, Michelle Bentham, R. Stuart Haszeldine, Ramon Carbonell and Alexander Rudloff.  Jan 2021. Enabling large-scale hydrogen storage in porous media – the scientific challenges. Energy Environ. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EE03536J
• Hassanpouryouzband, E. Joonaki, K. Edlmann, N. Heinemann, J. Yang. July 2020. Thermodynamic and transport properties of hydrogen containing streams Nat Sci Data, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0568-6
• Heinemann N., Booth M., Haszeldine S., Wilkinson M., Edlmann, K., Scafidi J. November 2018. Hydrogen storage in porous geological formations - Onshore play opportunities in the Midland Valley (Scotland, UK). International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319918330404 (IF=5.8)
• Sun, X., Alcalde, J., Bakhtbidar M., Elío, J., Vilarrasa, V., Canal, J., Ballesteros, J., Heinemann, N., Haszeldine, S., Cavanagh, A., Vega-Maza, D., Rubiera, F., Martínez-Orio, R., Johnson, G., Carbonell, R., Marzan, I., Travé, A., Gomez-Rivas, E., 2021. Hubs and clusters approach to unlock the development of carbon capture and storage – Case study in Spain. Applied Energy, 300, 117418, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117418.
• Jonathan Scafidi, Mark Wilkinson, Stuart M.V. Gilfillan, Niklas Heinemann, R. Stuart Haszeldine, A quantitative assessment of the hydrogen storage capacity of the UK continental shelf, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Volume 46, Issue 12, 2021, Pages 8629-8639, ISSN 0360-3199, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.12.106(IF=5.8)
• Mouli-Castillo J., Edlmann K., Thaysen E and Scafidi J. June 2021. “Enabling large-scale offshore wind with underground hydrogen storage” for First Break, June 2021. https://doi.org/10.3997/1365-2397.fb2021044
• Gonzalez, A, Mabon, L, and Agarwal, A (2021) ‘Who wants North Sea CCS, and why? Assessing differences in opinion between oil and gas industry respondents and wider energy and environmental stakeholders’ International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control DOI: 10.1016/j.ijggc.2021.103288
• Hassanpouryouzband, A., Joonaki, E., Farahani, M. V., Takeya, S., Ruppel, C., Yang, J., English, N. J., Schicks, J. M., Edlmann, K, Mehrabian, H., Aman, Z. M., Tohidi, B., 2020. Gas Hydrates in Sustainable Chemistry. Chemical Society Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1039/C8CS00989A

 

Associated papers

• Wang, G*., Pickup, G., Sorbie, K. and Mackay, E., 2021. Scaling analysis of hydrogen flow with carbon dioxide cushion gas in subsurface heterogeneous porous media. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. * Gang Wang is funded via a Leverhulme Scholarship.
• Peecock, A., Edlmann, K., Mouli-Castillo, J., Martinez-Felipe, A., McKenna, R., Mapping hydrogen storage capacities of UK offshore hydrocarbon fields and investigating potential synergies with offshore wind. Submitted to The Geological Society Special Publication: “Enabling Secure Subsurface Storage in Future Energy Systems”.
• Scafidi, J., Schirrer, L., Vervoort, I., Heinemann, N., An open-source tool for the calculation of field deliverability and cushion gas requirements in volumetric gas reservoir storage sites. Submitted to The Geological Society Special Publication: “Enabling Secure Subsurface Storage in Future Energy Systems”.
• Miocic, J., Heinemann, N., Edlmann, K., Scafidi, J., Molaei, F., Alcalde, J., Underground hydrogen storage: a review. The Geological Society Special Publication: “Enabling Secure Subsurface Storage in Future Energy Systems”.
• Craig Allsop, Georgios Yfantis, Evan Passaris and Katriona Edlmann Assessing the potential of developing offshore salt caverns for hydrogen storage, UK Continental Shelf. The Geological Society Special Publication: “Enabling Secure Subsurface Storage in Future Energy Systems”.
• Christopher J. McMahon, Jennifer J. Roberts, Gareth Johnson, Katriona Edlmann, Zoe K. Shipton, A study of natural hydrogen seeps as analogues to inform containment monitoring of engineered geological hydrogen storage. The Geological Society Special Publication: “Enabling Secure Subsurface Storage in Future Energy Systems”.
• Aftab, A., Hassanpouryouzband, A., Xie, Q., Machuca, L.L. and Sarmadivaleh, M., 2022. Toward a fundamental understanding of geological hydrogen storage. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 61(9), pp.3233-3253.
• Schultz, R.A., Heinemann, N., Horváth, B., Wickens, J., Miocic, J.M., Babarinde, O.O., Cao, W., Capuano, P., Dewers, T.A., Dusseault, M. and Edlmann, K., Goswick, R., Hassanpouryouzband, A., … 2023. An overview of underground energy-related product storage and sequestration. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 528(1), pp.SP528-2022.
• Miocic, J.M., Alcalde, J., Heinemann, N., Marzan, I. and Hangx, S., 2022. Toward Energy-Independence and Net-Zero: The Inevitability of Subsurface Storage in Europe. ACS Energy Letters, 7(8), pp.2486-2489.
• Pan, B., Liu, K., Ren, B., Zhang, M., Ju, Y., Gu, J., Zhang, X., Clarkson, C.R., Edlmann, K., Zhu, W. and Iglauer, S., 2023. Impacts of relative permeability hysteresis, wettability, and injection/withdrawal schemes on underground hydrogen storage in saline aquifers. Fuel, 333, p.126516.

 

 

Feb 6, 2023