[23-25 May 2023]
The 2nd European Underground Energy Storage Workshop which took place in Paris on 23-25 May 2023, was organized by the ENeRG network, COST Action Geothermal-DHC and EuroGeoSurveys and sponsored by AVALON International Corporation (Gold Sponsor) and DEEP.KBB (Silver Sponsor).
Fifty researchers and industry stakeholders from 25 countries, including the EU, Norway, the UK, Turkey, Albania, North Macedonia and the USA, took part in the workshop.
Alexandra Dudu (GeoEcoMar, Romania), the ENeRG President, opened and chaired the Introductory Session 1 on 23rd May. She first introduced Dan Stepansky, the new representative of the Czech Geological Survey in ENeRG, who spoke in memoriam of his dear colleague and schoolmate, Vit. Alla Shogenova (TalTech), the ENeRG Ex-President (2022-2023), continued the discourse in memoriam of Vit, rememorating her cooperation with him during two decades, in various projects and networks.
After Alla’s presentation, Kazbulat Shogenov (SHOGenergy) made an introductory lecture about “Carbon neutral technologies and the need for energy storage”. The session continued with a presentation on COST Geothermal DHC by Jessica Chicco and the presentation of CCS activities performed in the USA by the Gold Sponsor (Avalon International Corporation) represented by Miguel Silva.
The Session 2. Advances in the deployment of underground energy storage on 23rd May were chaired by Barbara Merson (OGS) with five presentations from industry and research. The session was opened with a presentation by Heike Bernhardt (DEEP.KBB, Germany – Silver Sponsor) on hydrogen storage in salt caverns – status and future potential. The second presentation was made by Matthias Torquet (Geostock, France) who explained the opportunities and particularities of underground storage of ammonia. Fernanda Veloso (BRGM, France) made two presentations, one on the storage of hydrogen in acquirers using CO2 as cushion gas and one on the PilotSTRATEGY project. CCUS ZEN project, in which ENeRG is a networking partner, was presented by Catherine Ringstad (SINTEF, Norway)
The third session, Challenges for underground energy storage, was held on 24th May and was chaired by Alexandra Dudu and Kazbulat Shogenov. The session included six presentations and started with the presentation of Roman Berenblyum (NORCE, Norway) on the CO2SPICER project, in which Vit Hladik was the coordinator from the Czech Geological Survey. Francesco Pizzocolo (EuroGeoSurveys) presented after that GSEU project, followed by Gang Wang (Heriot-Watt University, UK) with synergies between CCS and large-scale hydrogen storage. The second part of session 3 focussed on the challenges and particularities of energy storage in salt caverns with three presentations on this topic made by Murad Abuaisha (Paris School of Mines, France), Benoit Brouard (Brouard Consulting SAS, France) and Laura Blanco Martin (Paris School of Mines, France).
Sessions 4 and 5 on the 24th of May were organized by COST Action Geothermal-DHC and chaired by Jessica Maria Chico (University of Torino, Italy) and Vasiliki Gemeni (HAEE, Greece).
Additionally, 6 posters were presented and discussed during breaks.
All the workshop was carefully managed by the ENeRG secretary Eleonora Manoukian. During the workshop pictures were taken by Kazbulat Shogenov, Eleonora Manoukian and Jubier Alonso Jimenez Camargo (Paris School of Mines), who also helped us with the organization at the site.
A number of the UESW participants also took part in the HyStories Conference on 25-26 May in Paris https://hystories.eu/final-conference.
Most of the presentations made at the workshop will be published soon on our website www.energnet.eu.
