Confidence in Underground Hydrogen Storage in Zuidwending
The webinar "Confidence in Underground Hydrogen Storage (UHS) in Zuidwending," scheduled for December 17, 2025, will share key lessons from Dutch demonstration projects for underground hydrogen storage in salt caverns. Eddy Kuperus, responsible for hydrogen storage business development at Gasunie, will present practical experiences, technical challenges, and broader societal aspects, explaining why public trust is a crucial success factor for large-scale hydrogen infrastructure. The webinar will be hosted by HEAVENN.
About the webinar
Moderator: Tatiana Block – New Energy Coalition, Senior Project Manager HEAVENN
Speaker: Eddy Kuperus – Gasunie, Business Development Hydrogen Storage (UHS)
The following topics will be covered during the webinar:
Importance of underground hydrogen storage
Underground hydrogen storage offers large-scale, long-term flexibility to balance renewable energy and support security of supply. It helps industry and mobility align supply and demand in the long term.
Scaling up storage capacity
The webinar highlighted the enormous difference in scale compared to other storage options. Salt caverns and depleted gas fields can store large volumes of energy, essential for system-wide balancing rather than short-term buffering.
Hydrogen versus natural gas: safety and standards
Hydrogen behaves differently than natural gas: it ignites more easily, is lighter, and more reactive. This raises questions about materials, contaminants, and operational design, and highlights the lack of widely accepted standards for hydrogen storage.
What the Zuidwending demonstration taught us
Since 2018, Gasunie has been testing the integrity of caverns, components, and procedures. The pilot project revealed no technical obstacles, supporting confidence in the feasibility of the project.
Hydrogen quality and contaminants
Hydrogen quality standards are still being developed, especially when reusing existing storage. The webinar also highlighted European coordination of quality requirements.
Trust across four quadrants
Eddy Kuperus presented four quadrants for successful development:
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Technical: safe, proven processes
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Government: political support and regulations
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Social: social acceptance and perceived safety
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Economic/System: market demand and infrastructure integration
Public trust is thus built not only through technical performance, but also through good governance, transparency and clear value creation.
Disclaimer
This webinar is part of HEAVENN. HEAVENN has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (now Clean Hydrogen Partnership) under grant agreement No 875090. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Hydrogen Europe, and Hydrogen Europe Research. This page reflects the views only of the author, and the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (now Clean Hydrogen Partnership), under the powers delegated to it by the European Commission, is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
