Research & Innovation objective: hydrogen

Teréga’s R&I department has set itself the objective of developing and encouraging the ecosystem relating to the promotion of low-carbon, renewable hydrogen. To do that, our ambition is to establish one or more complete hydrogen ecosystems on an industrial scale, by adapting our infrastructure and/or by building new dedicated transport and storage infrastructure.

The major challenges we must meet to achieve this are injecting hydrogen into our infrastructure and guaranteeing an equivalent quality of service regardless of the gas or mix of gases being transported.

Several projects have therefore been developed at Teréga and with external national and international partners to study and test out on an industrial scale the best solutions for building the future hydrogen grid.

Studying the compatibility of Teréga’s infrastructure with hydrogen

As a gas operator, Teréga must ensure its infrastructure is compatible with transporting and storing renewable gases, including hydrogen. Several projects are therefore underway to meet the new grid safety and integrity challenges posed by hydrogen:

• storage: study of the behaviour of hydrogen mixed with natural gas in deep aquifers and its impact on well equipment,

• pipelines: analysis of the impact of hydrogen on pipelines (impact on welds, on the cracking process, etc.) and study of the new industrial safety constraints,

• compression: compatibility study of our compression and recompression equipment,

• gas equipment: performance and sealing check of our equipment in the presence of hydrogen, study of the impact on gas analysis,

• human resources: analysis of the impact of hydrogen on repair techniques, training of professionals who will work in the presence of hydrogen, etc.

Vessel under hydrogen pressure with tensile test specimen.

The HyGéo project: mass hydrogen storage

The HyGéo project, conducted in partnership with Hydrogène de France (HDF), aims to study mass hydrogen storage solutions, which are an important part of large-scale distribution logistics. Hydrogen storage is also a priority challenge for the development of renewable electricity, which is intermittently produced, since it allows electricity to be stored using the Power-to-Gas process.

HyGéo is an operational pilot project planned to enter service in 2027. The interest of such a project is to test out, in a real-life situation, the possibility of re-using underground salt caverns previously used for hydrocarbon storage. Built in a former salt cavern located in the village of Carresse-Cassaber (64) in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, it will be used to store around 1.5 GWh of hydrogen, equivalent to the annual consumption of 400 households.

The Lacq Hydrogen project: a link in the European hydrogen grid

Led by the gas operators, Teréga and Enagás, the renewable hydrogen producer DH2 and the power company GazelEnergie, the Franco-Spanish Lacq Hydrogen project aims to become a link in the strategic hydrogen value chain in Europe. The objective is to build a sustainable and replicable model of European cooperation to help establish decarbonised industry. A first link in the European Hydrogen Backbone.

Hydrogen will be produced by water electrolysis in Spain using solar power and at very competitive prices, thanks to the large solar resource in the region of Aragón. The project will supply a combined cycle power plant built and operated by GazelEnergie and located within the industrial area of Lacq (Nouvelle-Aquitaine). Hydrogen will be transported to the power plant by the Enagás gas grid in Spain and by the Teréga gas grid in France. Use of the Teréga aquifer storage site is also being planned in order to obtain a 100% dispatchable power plant. This plant will be supplied with hydrogen from 2026 and will produce 100% renewable and decarbonised energy, thus preventing the discharge of more than 700,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.