Swiss hydrogen energy storage

How many terawatt hours would a hydrogen storage system produce in Switzerland?

The researchers have made some initial calculations: providing Switzerland with around 10 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity from seasonal hydrogen storage systems every year in the future—which would admittedly be a lot—would require some 15–20 TWh of green hydrogen and roughly 10,000,000 cubic meters of iron ore.

How much hydrogen does Switzerland need?

The researchers have made some initial calculations: providing Switzerland with around 10 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity from seasonal hydrogen storage systems every year in the future – which would admittedly be a lot – would require some 15–20 TWh of green hydrogen and roughly 10,000,000 cubic metres of iron ore.

How much electricity can a hydrogen plant store?

(Image: ETH Zurich) “The pilot plant can store around 10 megawatt hours of hydrogen over long periods. Depending on how you convert the hydrogen into electricity, that’ll give you somewhere between 4 and 6 megawatt hours of power,” explains Samuel Heiniger, a doctoral student in Stark’s research group.

Can hydrogen be stored in a reactor?

Storing hydrogen is expensive and inefficient. In a pilot plant on ETH Zurich’s Hönggerberg campus, ETH researchers are showing how this could soon change. The researchers react the hydrogen with iron oxide in three reactors. The resulting iron is easy to store and convert back into hydrogen and iron oxide.

Where are hydrogen filling stations located in Switzerland?

A second component of hydrogen mobility is the gradual emergence of filling stations in various regions of Switzerland. The first public filling station opened in 2016 in Hunzenschwil, canton Aargau; the St Gallen filling station, which opened in July 2020, will be followed by others in the cantons of Zurich, Bern and Vaud by the end of the year.

How does Stark store hydrogen?

To store hydrogen better, Stark and his team are relying on the steam-iron process, which has been understood since the 19th century. If there is a surplus of solar power available in the summer months, it can be used to split water to produce hydrogen.