Development and calibration of a bio-geo-reactive transport model for UHS

Abstract

The increased share of renewable energy sources will lead to large fluctuations in energy availability and increases energy storage’s significance. Large-scale hydrogen storage in the subsurface may become a vital element of a future sustainable energy system because stored hydrogen becomes an energy carrier available on demand. Large hydrogen amounts can be stored in porous formations such as former gas fields or gas storages, while caverns can contribute with high deliverability. However, the storage of hydrogen induces unique processes in fluid-fluid and rock-fluid interactions (for example, bio- and geochemical reactions), which may affect the efficiency of the storage. In the present study, a mathematical model describing the two-phase multicomponent flow in porous media, including bio- and geochemical reactions, is developed to predict these hydrogen-related processes. The proposed model extends an existing model in the open source simulator DuMux describing the bio-reactive transport process considering methanation and sulfate-reduction by geochemical reactions. Significant attention is placed on the reduction from pyrite-to-pyrrhotite coming with the generation of harmful hydrogen sulfide. This reaction is calibrated by developing a kinetic model in DuMux that mimics the observations of reactor experiments from literature. The developed and calibrated model is afterwards used for simulation runs on field scale to assess the impact on Underground Hydrogen Storage (UHS) operations. The developed kinetic model describes the reduction from pyrite-to-pyrrhotite in agreement with the observations in the literature, whereby particular focus was placed on the hydrogen sulfide production rate. The consecutive implementation of the transport model in DuMux on field scale, including the bio- and geochemical reactions, shows the potential permanent hydrogen losses caused by reactions and temporary ones induced by gas-gas mixing with the initial and cushion gas.