www.ceotodaymagazine.com 34 34 THE CEO INTERVIEW “At this moment, many research projects are ongoing and the technology evolves rapidly. Europe is in a good position to be at the forefront of this development due to a long history track of safe operations in the gas storage.” LEONHARD GANZER beginning of the energy transition and especially since the start of the war in Ukraine, gas storage was put into the spotlight of public interest in Europe. It is fair to state that underground energy storage and its relevance for energy supply, security and resilience nowadays is vital for most of Europe. However, the above is valid for natural gas storage where business case, legal frameworks and a mature market exists. With respect to hydrogen storage in the underground, we are still in an early market phase, where significant challenges exist. The situation looks very much like the challenge to cross the gap or “chasm” known from many technology adoption lifecycles between the early adopters and the mainstream. A hydrogen market will need to develop and policies across Europe stimulate market ramp-up. This is of course accompanied with significant challenges. One key challenge, for example, will be to convert existing natural gas storage assets to become H2-ready. This comprises numerous technical but also legal challenges. It will require to scale-up technologies very rapidly and adapt legal frameworks for hydrogen infrastructure and for storage in the geological underground. Another key challenge is the total storage volume required for a future hydrogen economy given the relatively low volumetric energy density of H2. Since the energy content per volume of hydrogen is only about one third that of natural gas, it becomes obvious that we
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