The project

What is the status of the project? Below is a general overview of the status of the project and the activities carried out. If everything goes according to plan, we will commission the first cavern for hydrogen storage in 2031.

Permits and a spatial integration decision are required for the storage of hydrogen in salt caverns. Pursuant to the Mining Act, the national government regulates the decision-making process for this project through the project procedure (formerly the National Coordination Scheme (RcR)). More information about this can be found on the website of Bureau Energieprojecten.

The basic design for the above-ground, central hydrogen installation will be further developed in detailed engineering. This central hydrogen installation regulates the pressure, injection, and production of all hydrogen caverns and connects the caverns to the national hydrogen network Hynetwork.

Salt cavern A5 has reached its final form. Nobian, a Delfzijl-based producer of salt, has completely leached the cavern. After several tests, Nobian will transfer the cavern to HyStock so that it can be made technically ready. The locations of the other three hydrogen caverns are still under investigation.

It is already clear that the location for the intended cavern A8 is less suitable for a sufficiently large cavern.  Therefore, research will be conducted in the coming months into the location for cavern positions A9, A10, and A11. The diagram below shows where the caverns will be located and the search area for the cavern paths.

Exploratory drillings for the future caverns to better map the subsurface and quality of the salt layers.

Once the permits have been granted, the design of the installation has been finalized, and there are sufficient customers for hydrogen storage, Gasunie will be able to make the final investment decision for the realization of Hystock hydrogen storage. Construction of the above-ground hydrogen facility and necessary infrastructure for the first cavern A5 will then commence, and drilling and leaching of the other future hydrogen caverns will begin.

The above-ground installation will be connected to the national hydrogen network. Subsequently, the debrining of the first cavern will commence by filling it with hydrogen as cushion gas.

The first cavern will be ready for use around this time and will be able to provide storage services to any party that needs them via the hydrogen network. The available capacity will be approximately 6 kilotons of hydrogen.

The plan is for the next three hydrogen caverns to become operational shortly after the first one. Current estimates show that this storage capacity will be needed to compensate for the imbalance between hydrogen supply and demand.