ESB and dCarbonX explore green hydrogen storage sites off Irish coast

September 6, 2022
LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email

State-owned electricity company ESB and geoenergy company dCarbonX, partially owned by gas infrastructure company Snam, have signed a joint venture (JV) to explore green hydrogen storage opportunities off the coast of Ireland.

The pair have already been working together on assessing and developing offshore green hydrogen subsurface storage in Ireland’s waters since the second quarter of 2021.

dCarbonX is 29%-held by Snam, the Italy-based gas energy infrastructure company which runs a pipeline network of approximately 41,000km across Europe, managing 3.5% of the world’s gas storage capacity.

They believe there is significant potential to develop large-scale storage capacity off the Irish coast and intend to actively explore opportunities, the companies said in a media statement. The JV will focus on three specific green hydrogen storage opportunities based around proposed decarbonisation clusters.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

Not ready to commit yet?
  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

The first is the Poolpeg generating station on an artificial peninsula east of the capital Dublin, where green hydrogen could help decarbonise heavy transport, shipping, industry and power generation.

The second is the Moneypoint power station, which ESB is already turning into a green energy hub with a synchronous compensator and a 1,400MW offshore wind farm around the River Shannon Estuary.

The third is Project Kestrel, a project to re-develop decommissioned gas reservoirs at Kinsale Head field, 50km off the southern coast of County Cork. That was announced in August 2021 and, if approved, could potentially store up to 3TWh of green hydrogen and hydrogen carriers.

Tony O’Reilly, dCarbonX CEO, said: “Working with the backing of our shareholder Snam, dCarbonX has already begun the assessment of suitable offshore reservoirs that can support the storage of hydrogen and hydrogen carriers. We look forward to progressing these opportunities with ESB.”

Green hydrogen and green hydrogen storage projects are primarily being explored as a way to decarbonise heavy industries including fertiliser production. The next two areas with the most economic viability are for transportation and blending into natural gas power plants.

Power-to-X-to-power applications, where green hydrogen is stored for conversion back to electricity, are generally thought to be too uneconomical due to low round-trip efficiency.

Large projects in development which Energy-Storage.news has recently reported on include a 26 million KG project in Netherlands and a 300GWh project in Utah, US.

Read Next

October 29, 2025
Daiwa Energy & Infrastructure (DEI), an asset manager backed by investment bank Daiwa Securities, has invested in a large-scale battery storage project in northern Japan.
Premium
October 28, 2025
We gather the industry reaction to the MACSE auction in Italy, which saw TSO Terna procure 10GWh of long-term capacity at what most agreed are extremely low prices.
October 28, 2025
Singapore’s Jurong Island looks set to host a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant with integrated battery storage.
October 24, 2025
Peregrine Energy Solutions has secured US$130 million from investors including the South Korean Ministry of Environment.
October 23, 2025
ARENA has committed AU$25 million to support startup Relectrify’s world-first ‘inverterless’ battery energy storage system (BESS).

Most Popular

Email Newsletter