Recent Progress on Salt Cavern Energy Storage: A Review of Underground Salt Storage Technology based on SMRI Spring 2026 Proceedings
Abstract
Against the accelerating global energy transition, underground salt cavern energy storage has expanded beyond traditional natural gas strategic reserves to become critical infrastructure for the hydrogen economy and renewable energy integration. This paper aims to systematically sort out cutting-edge progress in core technical fields of salt cavern energy storage, clarify current research characteristics and existing challenges, and point out future development directions. Drawing on the latest research presented at the Spring 2026 Solution Mining Research Institute (SMRI) conference, this systematic review focuses on five core domains: mechanical stability, microbial corrosion, high-frequency cyclic operation, full-lifecycle monitoring, and decommissioning and sealing. Results show that novel salt cavern construction techniques have significantly improved cavern geometric regularity and surrounding rock integrity; microfluidic sensor arrays enable millimeter-level in-situ tracking of microbial corrosion processes; digital twin-based operational optimization extends cyclic lifespan by 37%, and the world’s first carbon footprint accounting framework for decommissioning provides quantitative support for defining abandonment-phase environmental liabilities. Current research features multi-scale analysis, multi-physics coupling, and full-lifecycle management. While microbial risks for hydrogen storage are controllable, high-frequency cycling technology is maturing, and probability-based multi-scale creep models offer new theoretical support for cavern abandonment. This review clarifies the development status of global salt cavern energy storage technology, and confirms that future development will rely on digital twins and physics-informed machine learning to achieve full-lifecycle closed-loop safety management, providing a structured reference for subsequent technological innovation and industrial deployment of salt cavern energy storage.
Article Type: Review article
Cited as:
Liu JJ, Song R, Mao HJ, et al. 2026. Recent Progress on Salt Cavern Energy Storage: A Review of Underground Salt Storage Technology based on SMRI Spring 2026 Proceedings. GeoStorage, 2(2), 180-195.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46690/gs.2026.02.06Keywords:
Salt cavern, gas storage, hydrogen storage, full-life cycle, machine learningReferences
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