Energy Storage Strategy - Phase 2

This document is phase 2 of the energy storage strategy study and it covers the storage challenges of the energy transition. We start in section 3, by covering historical and current natural gas imports into the UK and what these could look like in the future. In section 4 we explore what demand for hydrogen could look like – this has a high level of uncertainty, and future policy decisions will have significant impacts on hydrogen volumes and annual variations. We generated two hydrogen storage scenarios based on National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios and the Climate Change Committee’s Sixth Carbon Budget to assess the future need for hydrogen storage in the UK. We also looked at an extreme weather scenario resulting from an area of high-pressure settled over the British Isles resulting in very low ambient temperatures, an unusually high demand for heating and almost no wind generation. In section 5, we investigate options for hydrogen storage and build on work previously carried out by SGN. We discuss the differences between the properties of hydrogen and natural gas and how this affects line pack and depletion of line pack. We discuss flexibility on the supply and demand side and how this can impact on hydrogen storage. We provide a summary table which compares the various options for storage. In section 5, we explore hydrogen trade and options for import and export. Using information from other innovation projects, we also discuss production of hydrogen from nuclear power and the impact of hybrid appliances on gas demand for domestic heat. In section 7, we discuss the outputs from a stakeholder workshop with about 40 stakeholders across industry, academia and government. The workshop covered UK gas storage strategy to date, hydrogen demand and corresponding storage scenarios to 2050, including consideration of seasonal variation and storage options.