Hybrid Energy AS, with its daughter company Hystorsys AS, has been awarded the contract for the installation of the world´s largest H₂ storage facility based on metal hydride at Vestsiden Junior Highschool in Kongsberg.

According to Yngve Solvang CEO of Hybrid Energy said, “This ground-breaking technology used on such a large scale will be the first of its kind. This is a major milestone in H₂ storage in view of replacing oil and gas and will open a large market potential.”

Kongsberg Kommune has ordered a H₂ energy container for its Junior Highschool. The excess energy produced by the solar panels during summer will be stored as H₂, to be consumed during winter. The process (FIG. 1) includes 3 steps: 1- an electrolyzer generating H₂, 2- storage of H₂, 3 – fuel cell to re-generate electricity.

FIG. 1 System overview

Storage is the weakest link of the H₂ value chain: hydrogen is very voluminous => 1kg needs 11 m³ equivalent to 1 small truck. Therefore, it needs to be either compressed or cool down to very low temperature: both those processes are very energy consuming and complex.

Hystorsys’ H₂ storage solution is unique, based on metal hydride which allow a much higher energy density than lithium batteries.

This storage solution is safe as the pressure will not exceed 30 bar (FIG.2). This is the safest method in a school environment.

FIG .2 Hybrid Energy/Hystorsys storage

1 kg of H₂, safely stored with metal hydride in a smaller volume(FIG. 2), compared to traditional compressed H₂ storage solution (FIG. 3).

FIG. 3 Traditional storage