Hydrogen cavern storage facility Epe H2

The Epe H2 hydrogen cavern storage facility is being built at the Kottiger Hook site in Gronau-Epe in the district of Borken, North Rhine-Westphalia. The storage project comprises two salt caverns at a depth of around 1,000 meters with a usable working gas volume of 38 million cubic meters of hydrogen. The storage and withdrawal capacity is 50,000 cubic meters per hour in each case. The storage facility will be connected to the GET H2 network, which comprises the hydrogen pipeline between Lingen and the Ruhr area, via the HEp (Heek-Epe) hydrogen pipeline. The facility will serve to buffer fluctuating hydrogen production from renewable energies and enable demand-oriented supply to industrial customers in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony.
The project is being implemented by RWE Gas Storage West GmbH as the sole operator. The project is funded as part of the IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) program Hy2Infra. Funding is provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the federal government.
Commercial operation is scheduled to begin on July 1, 2027. With a storage capacity of 38 million cubic meters and a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters per hour for both injection and withdrawal, the facility in Gronau-Epe will be Germany's first commercial hydrogen cavern storage facility.