OPERATE–H2: A tool for optimizing underground hydrogen storage

Abstract

Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) is crucial in facilitating the transition to clean energy by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and ensuring a stable supply of emission-free energy. However, safe and efficient storage conditions require careful planning. While reservoir simulations could determine optimal storage conditions, exploring all possible scenarios can be computationally prohibitive and time-consuming. Reduced-order models (ROMs) can efficiently simulate reservoir performance and analyze multiple strategies with reduced computational cost, providing valuable insights for UHS decision-making. This paper introduces an innovative integrated assessment framework with a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI), designed to optimize UHS operations. The GUI features several advanced functionalities, including (1) temporal evolution for visualizing and analyzing UHS performance over withdrawal cycles, (2) local sensitivity analysis to determine the impact of individual parameters on UHS sites while keeping other inputs constants, (3) uncertainty quantification to identify the key factors for effective decision-making via tornado plots, (4) global sensitivity analysis to comprehensively quantify the interactions between geologic and operational parameters and their effect on UHS performance, and (5) sites screening feature to identify the most prominent potential sites for UHS installations. The GUI is built based on ROMs and the PyQt5 packages in Python. With user-friendly design and advanced features, Optimization, Evaluation, and Risk-Assessment Techniques for Hydrogen Energy tool (OPERATE–H2) enables users to evaluate different UHS scenarios quickly and effectively, helping to accelerate the transition to a cleaner and more sustainable energy future.