Blowout Prediction on a Salt Cavern Selected for a Hydrogen Storage Pilot

Hippolyte Djizanne (), Carlos Murillo Rueda, Benoit Brouard, Pierre Bérest and Grégoire Hévin
Additional contact information
Hippolyte Djizanne: Ineris, Parc Technologique ALATA, BP 2, 60550 Verneuil-en-Halatte, France
Carlos Murillo Rueda: Ineris, Parc Technologique ALATA, BP 2, 60550 Verneuil-en-Halatte, France
Benoit Brouard: Brouard Consulting, 101 Rue du Temple, 75003 Paris, France
Pierre Bérest: LMS, Ecole Polytechnique, Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France
Grégoire Hévin: Storengy, 12 Rue Raoul Nordling, 92270 Bois-Colombes, France

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 20, 1-19

Abstract: To prevent climate change, Europe and the world must shift to low-carbon and renewable energies. Hydrogen, as an energy vector, provides viable solutions for replacing polluting and carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Gaseous hydrogen can be stored underground and coupled with existing natural gas pipe networks. Salt cavern storage is the best suited technology to meet the challenges of new energy systems. Hydrogen storage caverns are currently operated in the UK and Texas. A preliminary risk analysis dedicated to underground hydrogen salt caverns highlighted the importance of containment losses (leaks) and the formation of gas clouds following blowouts, whose ignition may generate dangerous phenomena such as jet fires, unconfined vapor cloud explosions (UVCEs), or flashfires. A blowout is not a frequent accident in gas storage caverns. A safety valve is often set at a 30 m depth below ground level; it is automatically triggered following a pressure drop at the wellhead. Nevertheless, a blowout remains to be one of the significant accidental scenarios likely to occur during hydrogen underground storage in salt caverns. In this paper, we present modelling the subterraneous and aerial parts of a blowout on an EZ53 salt cavern fully filled with hydrogen.

Keywords: hydrogen; numerical modelling; blowout; salt caverns; thermodynamics; flash fire; UVCE; jet fire (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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