Natural gas storage
Natural gas is the most modern heating fuel there is. Like electricity, it is delivered in a consumer-friendly way by pipeline, it takes up no space for storage and has the best CO2 balance of all the fossil fuels. Because of these advantages, natural gas has become the no. 1 form of energy for heating. This is also the reason that, in Germany, six times as much natural gas is consumed in winter as in summer. For technical and economic reasons, such pronounced fluctuations in consumption cannot be accommodated by production and imports. More natural gas is therefore produced and imported in summer than the market can absorb. In contrast, the demand in winter exceeds the quantities available from production and imports.
Underground storageBEB therefore operates three underground storage facilities for natural gas, in which the summer surpluses can be temporarily stored. This means that, at the beginning of winter, an additional 1.8 billion cubic metres of natural gas is available to cover the increasing demand. This quantity is sufficient to supply a city like Hamburg with natural gas for a whole year.
Underground storage
Nature has shown us the best way to store natural gas with absolute safety and in an environmentally friendly way: in the porous rock strata where natural reserves of gas are found deep beneath the earth, where the valuable fuel lay for millions of years until it was discovered. These are the very places where we store the gas which is not needed in summer. The storage of natural gas in former gas fields is a technically challenging undertaking. An ongoing process of optimisation therefore ensures the greatest possible efficiency and reliability. Today, the storage of natural gas has become an indispensable pillar of our countries energy supply.
At present, around 10 per cent of Germany's annual natural gas consumption is held in storage facilities, in order to compensate for seasonal fluctuations. In addition to the development of our existing storage facilities, we are involved in the detailed preparation of further expansion options in order to cope with an increasing demand for natural gas.
Pore and cavern storage facilities
When talking about the storage of natural gas, a basic distinction is made between two types of storage facilities: pore storage facilities and cavern storage facilities.
Pore storages - former natural gas fields
Pore storages are nothing other than former natural gas fields from which natural gas has already been extracted. Here, the gas is held in tiny pores, cracks and cavities in solid but porous rock strata (at a depth of 1,500 to 2,700 metres).
The space within the gas field which has become free due to the extraction of the gas is available for storage purposes. Depending on the size of the former fields, large volumes can be temporarily stored in pore storages under high pressure. Pore storages are therefore designed to take on the basic load during the winter months.
Cavern storages - large cavities in salt domes
Cavern storages, on the other hand, are actually large cavities which have been artificially leached out of the salt-bearing strata in north German salt domes. BEB's cavern storage facility lies in a strategically favourable location in the vicinity of Harsefeld near Stade. With its high hourly output it allows consumption peaks to be covered flexibly and at short notice. Through the combination of both types of storage, we can offer our customers a maximum degree of flexibility allowing demand-oriented injection and withdrawal.
