R&D Safety Investigations for Underground Liquid Hydrogen Storage

According to preliminary studies, in addition to Hydrogen Refueling Stations layout flexibility, an underground hydrogen storage could bring at least 25% footprint reduction as compared to an above ground storage. Knowing that space is particularly a constraint in dense urban areas where hydrogen demand is high, underground configuration for liquid hydrogen storages could be an interesting alternative if the safety challenges induced by such a configuration are exhaustively inventoried and smartly addressed.

In this way, R&D led investigations in order to examine the different possible options of underground storage, define the most relevant configuration considering safety, technical and market constraints, and assess the feasibility to operate the selected configuration in safe conditions.

A panel of approaches was used - combining analytical simulations, lab-scale preliminary research, and near real-scale experimental simulations - to assess consequences of feared events, enrich risk analysis and propose concrete recommendations for safe deployment of the solution.