Material Insights · Understanding the Material World

Hydrogen storage: Impact and additionality

Replacing winter gas, once clean hydrogen actually exists

What this tab covers The impact and additionality lens: what it displaces on the grid, who gains and who bears the burden along the supply chain, and what happens at end of life.

Large hydrogen stores could replace gas for long, windless periods, but only once low-carbon hydrogen supply exists at scale.

Grid decarbonisation versus fossil displacement

Favourable

This is one of the few options for weeks-to-seasons storage, so it targets the residual gas used in winter or dark, still spells rather than daily solar shifting. The power plant served by ACES Delta is designed to start on a 30% hydrogen blend and move to 100% hydrogen by 2045. A 2021 European gas industry study estimated hydrogen storage needs of about 72 TWh in 2030 and 466 TWh in 2050 across 21 countries.58

European H2 storage need 72 TWh (2030); 466 TWh (2050)5 ACES turbine blend 30% H2 initially, 100% by 20458

Just transition and local community impact

Mixed

Storage reuses skills and sites from the natural gas industry: about 215 TWh of European hydrogen potential could come from repurposing depleted fields and aquifers, keeping work in gas regions. Benefits concentrate where salt or depleted fields lie. Lead times for demonstration and development are long, 10-15 years, which delays local benefits.56

Repurposable depleted fields and aquifers (Europe) about 215 TWh H25 Development lead time 10-15 years6

Circular economy and end of life

Mixed

Caverns last decades and can be switched between gases. LOHC carriers are reusable many times, by the maker's account. Composite tanks are hard to recycle, and hydride alloys need metal recovery at end of life. No reliable recycling rates were found.37

Sources

  1. LOHC brochure Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies, 2025
  2. H2 storage needs to exceed existing gas storage: GIE (reporting Gas Infrastructure Europe study) Argus Media, 2021
  3. Underground hydrogen storage: application of resource management (UNECE Resource Management Week) IEA Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Programme, 2021
  4. Hydrogen underground storage in salt caverns ENGIE Innovation, 2021
  5. Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES Delta) project summary US DOE Loan Programs Office, 2022