On August 17, in Wangcheng District, Changsha, Hunan Province, the gas storage sealing cycle test of China Energy Engineering Group’s world’s largest in-situ test platform for artificial cavern gas storage was successfully completed. The test pressure exceeded the world’s highest level of 18 MPa, and through the “dual 168-hour” continuous operation verification involving high-low pressure cycling and long-term pressure holding, various performance indicators such as the sealing performance and stability of the gas storage have reached the international advanced level.
This laboratory serves as an important base for scientific and technological innovation of China Energy Engineering Digital Technology Group. It houses two ultra-large test caverns with a maximum depth of 110 meters and a maximum test pressure of 20 MPa. Equipped with the capability of “dual-cavern” synchronous testing, both its scale and pressure parameters rank first globally. Constructed starting from December 2022 and put into operation in August 2024, the laboratory has overcome the worldwide challenges concerning safety and economy in high-pressure, multi-medium, and long-cycle gas storage in artificial caverns.
It is reported that China Energy Engineering Digital Technology Group, leading joint research with Changjiang Design Group and Wanhua Energy Conservation Group, has achieved “eight first-of-its-kind” outcomes, including a rigid-flexible composite sealing system, surrounding rock bearing theory, full-domain temperature field data acquisition, and high-pressure air state observation, realizing 100% independency.
This major breakthrough has pioneeringly expanded the space for deep underground resource utilization that adapts to ultra-high pressure and large fluctuation conditions, integrating high economy, high reliability, high construction efficiency, and high operational controllability. It marks the comprehensive establishment of China’s technical route in the field of artificial cavern gas storage and will accelerate the large-scale and industrial development of the compressed air energy storage industry. This technology not only supports high-pressure air storage but can also be widely applied to the storage of strategic materials such as hydrogen, natural gas, ammonia, oil, and gas. It provides cross-domain support for “source-grid-load-storage” integration, hydrogen energy industrialization, and oil-gas strategic reserves, ushering in a new pattern of “multi-energy co-storage.”
Multiple technological innovations by China Energy Engineering Group in artificial caverns for compressed air energy storage are “in sync” with the application of the world’s first 300MW compressed air energy storage demonstration project in Jiuquan, Gansu. The successful grid-connected power generation of the Jiuquan project marks a new breakthrough in China’s compressed air energy storage industry.
