Pingdingshan: China's first one-million-cubic-metre-level salt cavern hydrogen storage demonstration project has been officially put into operation in Pingdingshan, central Henan Province. This development marks a new phase of industrialization for the country's hydrogen energy chain.
According to Emirates News Agency, the project utilizes high-quality salt rock resources from a gas storage and salt chemistry company under China Pingmei Shenma. Significant technological breakthroughs were achieved by the Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with design and construction contributions from China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec).
The project aims to create a salt cavern with a water-soluble volume exceeding 30,000 cubic metres and achieve a hydrogen storage capacity of 1.5 million standard cubic metres, as stated by Liang Wuxing, Deputy Chief Economist of China Pingmei Shenma. Currently, the facility employs two compressors to inject hydrogen at 15 MPa and a rate of 2,000 standard cubic metres per hour.
Yang Chunhe, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, highlighted the importance of salt cavern hydrogen storage as a technology to overcome the challenges of large-scale hydrogen storage and transportation, supporting the construction of a new energy system. He further noted that the project has verified the long-term sealing capacity and engineering feasibility of hydrogen storage in layered salt rocks.