Swedish hydrogen gas storage pilot completed with up to 40% cost reductions

In Sweden, HYBRIT’s pilot project for hydrogen gas storage has now been completed and reported to the Swedish Energy Agency. The results show that it is technically possible to store fossil-free hydrogen gas for producing fossil-free iron and steel on an industrial scale. This can also reduce the variable operating costs of hydrogen production by up to 40 per cent.

The HYBRIT initiative was launched in 2016 by owners SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall with the aim of developing the world’s first fossil-free, ore-based iron- and steelmaking using fossil-free electricity and hydrogen gas. The project for the production of fossil-free sponge iron for steel production (DR pilot) is now being followed up with the results of the pilot for fossil-free hydrogen gas production and storage.

The project has successfully designed and constructed a 100 m3 hydrogen storage facility based on steel-lined rock cavern technology in Svartöberget adjacent to the DR pilot for sponge iron production in Luleå, Sweden. The tests now completed show that the technology works to support a large-scale hydrogen user, and that savings of about 25-40 per cent of the variable operating costs of hydrogen gas production could be reached. The pilot storage facility has undergone accelerated mechanical testing equivalent to approximately 50 years of operation, and the safety, functionality and performance of the facility have been successfully demonstrated.