UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has opened a competition worth up to £5 million to test and validate components required for underground hydrogen storage. The programme seeks an integrated research consortium covering materials, compressors and metering and monitoring systems, with the aim of generating evidence that can support safe operation and eventual commercial deployment in the UK.
The competition opened on 23 October and closes at 11am on 13 January 2027. Applicants must form a consortium addressing all three technical themes as a coordinated programme, rather than submitting isolated materials or equipment projects. Eligible grant requests run from £2.5 million to £5 million. Within that total, one enterprise may claim no more than £3 million, and UKRI expects to fund a single consortium.
Funded work is scheduled to begin on 1 May 2027 and run for between 24 and 30 months, ending no later than 30 November 2029. The programme sits within the R&D Missions Accelerator Programme and its Ultra Long Duration Energy Storage challenge, which seeks technologies capable of delivering more than 100 hours of energy storage.
Underground storage would allow hydrogen to be produced when suitable energy and supply conditions exist, retained over extended periods and withdrawn when demand requires it. In a power-system application, the gas may subsequently be used in generation equipment, but the underground facility must also manage injection, containment and withdrawal under defined operating limits. The engineering demands differ from those of a conventional short-duration electrical battery.
The materials work covers parts exposed to hydrogen, pressure cycling and the particular environment of an underground store. Steels, liners, cements, casings, tubing, elastomer seals and packers are among the eligible areas. A material that withstands ordinary gas service may respond differently when hydrogen, residual brines and impurities act together over repeated injection and withdrawal cycles. Representative conditions therefore matter more than a favourable result from a single simple bench test.
Fatigue, loss of containment and chemical degradation are among the risks requiring representative testing. Storage concepts can also encounter brines and other substances associated with the surrounding geology. The programme therefore asks participants to produce evidence on durability and integrity, and to identify how their results could be used in design, maintenance and eventual qualification.
Compressors form the second theme because hydrogen must reach the necessary injection pressure over variable flow conditions. The competition permits new machines, hybrid architectures and improvements to existing compressor systems, with efficiency, seal integrity, diagnostics and lifetime cost among the relevant measures. Developers will need to account for pressure ratios, ramp rates, cycling and potential contaminants, rather than testing one attractive operating point in isolation.
UKRI is inviting work on new compressor concepts, hybrid arrangements and improvements to existing machines, including condition monitoring and diagnostics. Testing will need to reflect practical flow rates, pressure changes, ramp rates and potential contaminants. The programme aims to improve reliability and lifetime costs as well as nominal compressor performance.
Metering and monitoring form the third theme. A storage operator needs reliable measurements of gas entering and leaving the system, as well as warnings of leakage, material degradation and changes in the surrounding rock or engineered containment. Flow meters, subsurface sensors and diagnostic software each contribute different evidence. Calibration and uncertainty must be understood before such readings can support a safety or maintenance decision.
Measurement alone is not enough if readings cannot be interpreted reliably over time. Sensors must be calibrated, uncertainties understood and data connected to operational decisions. Monitoring equipment used in underground environments must also remain dependable under the conditions it is intended to measure, rather than requiring frequent removal for verification.
Every bid must include programme management and cross-cutting validation, certification and standards work. The consortium needs links to storage developers or operators, manufacturers, testing facilities and relevant safety expertise, with a credible route to use the results in the UK. It must also consider how validated components could be manufactured and supplied in larger quantities, rather than treating laboratory performance as sufficient evidence of readiness.
This component competition is distinct from a simultaneous £1.5 million call for site-specific hydrogen demonstrator development studies. Applicants cannot simply transfer a proposal between the two: the component programme requires all three technical themes and a coordinated validation plan, whereas the other competition deals with engineering and commercial preparation for proposed storage sites.
The programme’s intended output is comparable performance evidence for materials, compressors and monitoring technologies that could enter commercial underground hydrogen storage systems around 2030. Successful applicants will need to show how the three workstreams share operating assumptions and test results, then identify remaining qualification gaps. No grant award has yet been made; submissions close on 13 January 2027.
