Under a feasibility development agreement, Uniper holds exclusive rights to assess all 13 caverns of the Salinae Hydrogen Storage project for hydrogen storage.
The companies will jointly design the first two wells for potential hydrogen storage caverns, with development contingent on Uniper securing planning approval and government support.
With no established hydrogen market, Uniper says a government-backed business model is needed to move the project forward.
“Flexible energy storage is a fundamental component of both the energy transition and the security of the UK’s energy supply,” explained John Rixham, Uniper Head of Hydrogen Storage Development for the UK.
“Cheshire has the perfect geology to safely store large volumes of hydrogen and the Salinae Hydrogen Storage project could contribute to developing this innovative technology.”
British Salt, which owns the site’s mineral rights, is expected to use the brine displaced during cavern formation for salt production at its Middlewich facility.
“One of the many benefits in our unique partnership would be our ability to use the brine displaced in the formation of the caverns in the production of salt at our Middlewich plant,” noted Rob Hudson, Head of Strategic Development at British Salt.
Uniper is advancing UK hydrogen production with its Humber H2ub in Killingholme – a 120MW green hydrogen plant using ITM Power electrolysers, recently shortlisted for government funding.
Uniper plans to use salt cavern storage across its global hydrogen projects. Speaking to H2 View last year, Doug Waters, Managing Director of Uniper Energy Storage, said, “There’s a big band of salt that runs across the UK, Netherlands, northern Germany, to Denmark and Poland.
“We have a whole suite of options in the UK and Germany that are in various locations that can be deployed for different use cases.”
Uniper goes underground: Storing hydrogen in salt caverns
Uniper has had a busy summer. Aside from closing the UK’s last coal-fired power plant, the German state-owned energy firm has also been making steps that could guide its future, cleaner energy business
In August, the company opened its pilot underground hydrogen storage cavern in Krummhörn, Germany, which Doug Waters, Managing Director of Uniper Energy Storage, told H2 View is unique in its focus.
“Our concept is to test storing hydrogen salt caverns, and whilst that’s been done in a number of places before, we’re looking at it from a perspective of how quickly we can move the hydrogen in and out, and what the quality is when we get it back,” he said.
The Hydrogen Pilot Cavern (HPC) project is trialling the storage of hydrogen at an existing wellhead, which belongs to a storage site in Lower Saxony where natural gas was stored until 2017. Hydrogen will be stored at a maximum pressure of over 200 bar giving a capacity of almost 500,000Nm3– around 45 tonnes.
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