Offshore staff
LARNE, UK – Islandmagee Energy has secured a marine construction license for a gas storage project offshore Northern Ireland.
The company plans to construct seven storage caverns capable of holding around 500 MMcm of natural gas, ensuring supply during peak demand for Northern Ireland for up to 14 days.
According to Islandmagee, Britain’s present gas storage capacity represents 1% of its annual demand, compared to 20-30% for other European countries.
The new storage project will hold more than 25% of the UK’s storage capacity.
John Wood, Group CEO of parent company, Harland & Wolff, said: “This is good news for consumers and businesses in the UK who are currently experiencing distressing hikes in energy prices and fears of potential blackouts as gas and power grids face peak demand stresses during the winter months.
Islandmagee Energy also has longer-term plans to store hydrogen.
“The existing power grid cannot always accept all of the electricity generated from wind farms during periods of surplus wind power generation,” Wood explained.
“It is during these frequently occurring periods that wind farms are temporarily scaled back as there is no way to store the excess electricity produced. Production of large-scale hydrogen and its storage is the long-term solution to this.
“Excess wind generated power can be used to produce green hydrogen which can then be stored in salt caverns for future use during peak demand periods.”
10/14/2021
