Integrity assessment and geological and geomechanical characterization of selected structures for the purposes of underground storage of substances in the Polish Lowlands.
Project start date: 01.2022
Project end date: 03.2024
Founding: National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW)
Salt caverns are the underground cavities leached within salt layers. They are commonly used for natural gas, hydrogen, and compressed air underground storage. The storage of very large volume of liquids and gases are save, environmental-friendly and cheap storage opportunity. Salt caverns are suitable for short term trading and long term seasonal storage of energy and also as to keep the strategic reserves to ensuring the security of energy supply.Poland has favourable geological conditions for constructing the underground caverns in salt bearing deposits. Currently, there are two salt caverns for gas storage (KPMG Mogilno and KPMG Kosakowo), and one for oil and fuel (PMRiP Góra). The expected increase in the demand for fuel and energy in the near future is a main factor motivating to expend the current storage system.The goal of the project is to develop the assessment criteria that ensure stability and tightness of the salt cavern, in particular, geomechanical parameters of the rocks and geometrical parameters of the cavern. The results of the work can be useful to constrain the best cavern location within the Łeba Elevation and for the technical aspects of the salt cavern design. Moreover, they can increase the understanding of threads associated with the operation of such magazines