Frequently used keywords
Frequently visited sites
The National Laboratory for Renewable Energy’s research project on underground hydrogen storage at the University of Miskolc’s Institute of Applied Earth Sciences has been completed. At the closing ceremony held on December 5, 2025, the rock testing equipment developed as part of the project was handed over in a festive setting.
Hydrogen injected into the geological environment as an energy storage medium raises a number of questions that need to be answered in order to ensure safe and economical storage. The research project at the University of Miskolc focused on investigating the permeability of underground storage space. Based on the developed procedure, a new device was developed at the Institute of Applied Earth Sciences, which is suitable for performing the measurements necessary to determine the permeability of the storage rock, i.e., the reservoir, when using a hydrogen-methane mixture. The measurement results were evaluated using existing and custom-developed computer software and simulations, which made it possible to determine how the hydrogen-natural gas mixture affects the permeability of the reservoir rock involved in the operation.
At the handover ceremony for the rock testing equipment, Prof. Dr. Gábor Mucsi, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Environmental Sciences, emphasized the importance of reservoir engineering tasks related to underground storage and the identification of excellent research topics with professional partners, raising them to an international level. The project’s technical manager, Dr. István Szunyog, gave a detailed presentation of the tasks performed and the reservoir mechanical challenges of hydrogen storage.
At the closing event, Dr. Ildi Bölkény, senior research fellow (ME – FIEK), gave a presentation on the design and construction of the rock testing equipment. Dr. Mátyás Krisztián Baracza, director of the institute (ME – AFKI), spoke about the experiences related to poroperm tests and flooding rocks with hydrogen. Dr. Marianna Vadászi, associate professor, department head, and leader of the Underground Hydrogen Storage Research Group (ME-BEI), gave a presentation on the underground storage of hydrogen.
From the industrial side, Tamás Földes, managing director of TOMOGEO Kft., Béla Tihamér Szőcs, head of the operations group at MFGT Zrt., and Anitha Andiappan, reservoir engineer at RAG Austria AG, gave high-quality presentations on their experiences with underground hydrogen storage and laboratory measurements combined with MicroCT measurements.
After the conference, participants discussed further possible research directions alongside the rock testing equipment.
