As the world seeks to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, low-emission hydrogen is gaining favor as a replacement for fossil fuels. Demand for low-emission hydrogen is expected to rise 21% to 115 million tons by 2030 from 95 million tons in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

This means that there is much to do for hydrogen production and storage capacity to keep pace with demand.

Maurizio Bellingardi, Senior Product Manager Technology – Hydrogen Industrial Applications at Tenaris, witnessed this demand at the June 28 to 29 Hydrogen & Carbon Capture Technology North America Expo & Conference in Houston, Texas.

At the booth, Tenaris unveiled its newest product for hydrogen applications as part of its THera™ portfolio. The new linear storage solution not only provides more storage capacity – from five to over 100 tons of hydrogen– but is also designed to reduce the initial capital investment and operational cost of a project. The result is a more efficient solution for hydrogen storage that can perform safely under high-pressure conditions.

Bellingardi said the new solution drew a lot of attention at the booth. "Both days were super busy for our team," he stated. "We could not even think about leaving the booth until the end of the last day because of the queue of people wanting to learn more about our solutions."

While surprised by the turnout, it did make sense for him. More governments, led by Europe and the United States, are providing incentives to develop the hydrogen industry in the race to decarbonize quickly, and this is spurring demand for solutions to use low-emission hydrogen as an energy source, such as green from renewable energy or blue from natural gas with the use of carbon capture and storage. But as the production of low-emission hydrogen is lagging worldwide, there are expectations that some countries may allow hydrogen applications projects to get underway with gray hydrogen made from natural gas without carbon capture and storage.

"This will allow projects to start," Bellingardi remarked. "Then you will have a timeframe to switch to green hydrogen in the future."

This transition is a significant topic at hydrogen conferences, and it is fueling expectations that the use of hydrogen storage and other applications will take off maybe sooner than expected.

The need for hydrogen storage

Hydrogen storage will be needed for several reasons. For one thing, not all hydrogen applications can immediately consume all of the clean fuel when it is supplied by a pipeline or produced on-site. A second reason is that hydrogen production can vary. For example, it halts at night if made at a solar power plant. This means storage is crucial for contending with the peaks and valleys in demand and production.

Typically, hydrogen users require small but highly dynamic storage systems that can "load and unload hydrogen every half an hour or every hour like a fueling station for hydrogen vehicles," he underlined. "Or you have users that need larger quantities but with different dynamics that could be one cycle per day or one cycle per season."

A growing market

To develop its new hydrogen storage system, Tenaris is targeting a niche market that it expects to grow in the future.

"These users will need a relatively high amount of hydrogen, such as several kilograms per hour," Bellingardi assured. "This means that tons of hydrogen will be used during a normal week or month of production, and so you will need a consistent storage buffer of several tons of hydrogen for your process."

As hydrogen is stored in its gaseous form, it is not very dense, so large tubular vessels are needed for storage, especially if large quantities are required. Traditionally, many of these tubular vessels – or bottles – are installed for storage, sometimes hundreds of them. Each one has an inlet and an outlet, and the associated valves are connected to pipes and a piping system.

"This is a very complicated pressure system that, if multiplied by hundreds of bottles, is very complicated to manage, inspect, and maintain," Bellingardi remarked.

But with the THera™ linear storage solution, "you can buy one very long tubular vessel" that stores more hydrogen.

"Instead of hundreds of bottles, you install a few bottles that are very long, as long as a football field," he said. "This linear storage is very efficient. You only have to control a few inlets and hydrogen outlets. If you have only 15 of these bottles, they are very long, but there are very few of them individually, so you have far fewer problems to control. And at the same time, you have a larger storage unit with less complexity than what you have today."

The significant benefit of the linear storage solution is that it is cheaper and easier to operate than existing storage systems, especially with larger volumes of hydrogen, Bellingardi added. "We have designed something simpler in concept and simpler in terms of maintenance."