Abstract
With the steady increase of demand for city gas in urban area and its periphery, the distribution capacity of city gas from LNG plant in the coastal areas to consumers inland through existing pipelines is expected to reach its limitation in the near future in Japan. The introduction of new storage technology with following benefits in comparison with gas holders, which has been commonly used in Japan,
•Large storage capacity
•Low storage cost per effective storage gas volume
•Possibility to store gas near consumers in the inland
is expected to enhance the efficiency of existing infrastructure, and thereby reduce the requirements for large amount of investment in additional production facilities and pipelines. As such technology, the lined rock gas storage technology is proposed, in which the surrounding rock is expected to support the high pressure of storage gas.
The objective of this study is to investigate the lined rock gas storage technology as a new form of storing gas energy and to evaluate the practicability of the technology for city gas service business.
