As part of the globally unique research project "Underground Sun Storage 2030" (USS 2030), renewable solar energy has been converted into pure hydrogen in a climate-neutral manner by means of electrolysis and stored in a depleted natural gas reservoir since March 2021.
Until 2025, technical and scientific investigations under real conditions will be carried out together with project partners at a small former natural gas deposit in Upper Austria. These investigations will be supplemented by the development of suitable processing technologies, the modeling of future energy scenarios and techno-economic analyses.
The previous projects "Underground Sun Storage" and "Underground Sun Conversion" have already demonstrated that a hydrogen content of up to 20% can be safely stored in natural gas reservoirs. Building on this, the "Underground Sun Storage 2030" project goes one step further.
Laboratory tests have shown that the hydrogen content can also be increased to 100%. Therefore, as a part of the current field test, the construction of the first 100% hydrogen storage on a real scale will take place by 2025 in Rubensdorf. In addition to RAG Austria, Verbund, EVN, Energie AG and the scientific partners Hycenta and the Energy Institute of the Johannes Kepler University Linz are also involved in the USS 2030 project.
