HyCavern presented at the SINTEF Storage Conference 2026

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HyCavern was represented at the SINTEF Storage Conference 2026 in Trondheim, Norway, on 16–17 June, where SINTEF’s Prof. Rolf Cerasi attended on behalf of the project and presented HyCavern’s work through a dedicated poster on lined rock caverns for underground hydrogen storage.

The conference brought together researchers, industry representatives and storage experts working on the next generation of subsurface storage. Although the event focused strongly on CO₂ storage, many of the discussions were directly relevant to underground hydrogen storage: site selection, containment, monitoring, regulation, safety and long-term performance.

For HyCavern, this made the conference a valuable platform to share the project’s approach. Large-scale hydrogen storage will be essential for a renewable energy system that needs flexibility across hours, days and seasons. Yet hydrogen storage is not only about finding underground space. It is about proving that storage systems can be safe, durable, affordable and trusted.

The HyCavern poster introduced the project’s work on mined, lined rock caverns, a storage concept designed to expand hydrogen storage beyond the limits of conventional salt caverns. By combining engineered steel and concrete lining systems with the surrounding rock mass, HyCavern is working towards a storage solution that can be adapted to different geological conditions across Europe.

A dedicated conference session on “Subsurface hydrogen and energy storage” further underlined the relevance of HyCavern’s work. The session explored the potential of underground energy storage, the need to look beyond salt caverns, and the technical questions that must be addressed before these systems can be deployed at scale.

Prof. Cerasi’s participation also helped connect HyCavern with the wider subsurface storage community, including experts with long-standing experience in CO₂ storage. These exchanges are important because CO₂ and hydrogen storage share many common questions around subsurface behaviour, risk management, monitoring and public confidence, even if the gases and operating conditions differ.

For HyCavern, the conference was an opportunity to present underground hydrogen storage as an integrated system. The project brings together work on liner materials, coatings, concrete structures, digital modelling, monitoring, site selection and techno-economic assessment. Each of these elements is needed to move lined rock cavern technology from concept towards practical deployment.

As Europe works to build the infrastructure needed for a clean energy system, underground storage will become increasingly important. HyCavern’s contribution is to help make hydrogen storage safer, more flexible and more widely deployable — and the SINTEF Storage Conference provided a timely platform to share that ambition with the broader storage community.

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