Europe to lose two-thirds of storage capacity in hydrogen conversion

Hydrogen’s lower energy content per cubic metre compared with natural gas will have major implications for the European energy system, RAG CEO tells Hydrogen Economist

Austrian gas storage operator RAG aims to store 10TWh of hydrogen from 2030–35, anticipating a shift away from natural gas by 2050. But converting underground storage facilities to store hydrogen instead of natural gas will result in a loss of two-thirds of these reservoirs’ energy content, according to CEO Markus Mitteregger. “One cubic metre of gas is roughly 10kWh, and the same cubic metre of hydrogen has just 3[kWh]. So you are losing two-thirds of the energy. That means, even if you increase the volume, the content of the energy is less,” he says. He anticipates that RAG will have to retain its current natural gas storage capacity in the 2030s to sustain continued demand from gas-fired