SEK 200 million in pilot plant for storage of fossil-free hydrogen

Potential to reduce Sweden’s total carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent

SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall, the owners behind the HYBRIT initiative, are investing SEK 150 million towards the construction of a storage facility for hydrogen at the HYBRIT pilot plant for fossil-free steel. The Swedish Energy Agency is contributing almost SEK 50 million. The investment is an important step towards fossil-free iron and steel production. The HYBRIT initiative began in 2016. By using fossil-free electricity and hydrogen instead of coke and coal in steel production, the emissions will be water instead of carbon dioxide. The initiative has the potential to reduce Sweden’s total carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent. The plan is to build the new hydrogen gas storage facility 25-35 meters below the ground surface on LKAB's land in Svartöberget, close to the pilot plant currently under construction on SSAB's site in Luleå. The storage facility is expected to operate from 2022 to 2024. The pre-feasibility for the HYBRIT initiative showed that large-scale storage of hydrogen gas can play an important role in Sweden's future energy system. As well as acting as a buffer to ensure an even flow to the steel production, a large-scale hydrogen gas storage facility would offer a better opportunity to balance the electricity system with a greater proportion of weather-dependent power generation, and enable a competitive production cost for the fossil-free steel.