ZHENGZHOU -- China's first one-million-cubic-meter-level salt cavern hydrogen storage demonstration project has been officially put into operation in Pingdingshan, Central Henan province, marking a new phase of industrialization for the country's hydrogen energy chain.

"Salt cavern hydrogen storage is a key technology to break the bottleneck of large-scale hydrogen storage and transportation, and to support the construction of a new energy system," said Yang Chunhe, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, at the commissioning ceremony of the project on Saturday.

The project was conducted based on the high-quality salt rock resources of a gas storage and salt chemistry company under the China Pingmei Shenma. Its key technological breakthroughs were led by the Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with the participation of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) in design and construction.

The project aims to create a salt cavern with a water-soluble volume exceeding 30,000 cubic meters and achieve a hydrogen storage capacity of 1.5 million standard cubic meters, said Liang Wuxing, deputy chief economist of China Pingmei Shenma.

At present, the project uses two compressors to inject hydrogen at a pressure of 15 MPa and a rate of 2,000 standard cubic meters per hour.

"The project has verified the long-term sealing capacity and engineering feasibility of hydrogen storage in layered salt rocks," said Yang.

The engineers of the project pledged to explore new pathways for the large-scale utilization of hydrogen power, and actively promote diversified application scenarios such as hydrogen-blended natural gas, hydrogen-powered heavy-duty trucks, and hydrogen-fired boilers.