Near‐Surface Bulk Storage of Hydrogen

In future sustainable energy systems, hydrogen could be employed in addition to its current chemical usage as a versatile energy carrier. This requires the buildup of a hydrogen delivery infrastructure with facilities for stationary large‐ and small‐scale storage. One option for large‐scale storage is to use underground storage, but good geological conditions do not exist everywhere. For this reason, alternatives for the storage of large quantities of hydrogen could be of great importance. This chapter is therefore dedicated to bulk hydrogen storage in vessels that can be located above ground or buried a few meters below the surface. Thereby, the considerations are confined to storage technologies for which no technical obstacle to their use is expected. These are containments for compressed gaseous hydrogen, cryogenic liquid hydrogen, and metal hydrides. In addition to technical data, cost estimates and economic targets are also presented. Further, a technical assessment of the storage efficiency and capacity of selected storage technologies with respect to the daily hydrogen demand of a fueling station is given.