Consultation on modernising environmental permitting for industry

Many new ‘low carbon’ technologies that use the subsurface (below ground) to extract and store green energy and to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) could potentially be commercialised in the UK in the coming years. One such retrievable energy storage technique is deep underground hydrogen storage. Depleted oil and gas reservoirs, man-made salt caverns, deep aquifers, hard rock caverns and abandoned mines may be considered for hydrocarbon storage.  

Direct discharges of pollutants to groundwater are prohibited under the EPRs via the Water Framework Directive (WFD), unless specifically listed as being exempted from this prohibition (and as such the listed exempted activities can be potentially permitted). Unless the EPRs are amended then the prohibition on the direct discharges of pollutants would apply to the underground hydrogen storage in deep aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs. 

We would appreciate views on the case for amending the list of exemptions from the prohibition on direct discharges to groundwater within Paragraph 8 of Schedule 22 to the EPRs to include underground hydrogen storage in deep aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs. This would remove legal constraints and enable the EA to apply appropriate permitting controls as necessary to facilitate such innovative energy storage technologies. Without this change, hydrogen storage in deep aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs cannot lawfully be permitted.