British Gas-owner Centrica PLC has nearly doubled gas storage capacity at Rough, the UK’s largest gas storage facility.
The facility, 18 miles off the East Yorkshire coast, was re-opened for gas storage in October 2022, and at that time was able to store approximately 30bn cubic feet (bcf) of gas for UK homes and businesses.
But after engineering work and investment, Centrica said Rough will now be able to store up to 54 bcf of gas, an 80% increase.
Centrica said this would boost the UK's energy resilience for the coming winter and provide the equivalent volume of gas to heat 2.4mln homes over winter.
Rough now provides half of the UK's total gas storage.
Centrica said Rough will help keep prices down for consumers by balancing the UK's gas market, injecting gas into the facility when there is excess supply and putting that gas back into the UK's gas network when customers need it, keeping prices lower at that point of peak demand.
The additional capacity means Rough can store up to six days of average UK gas use.
Centrica's long-term ambition is to turn the Rough gas field into the largest long-duration low-carbon energy storage facility in the world, capable of storing both natural gas and hydrogen.
Centrica chief executive, Chris O'Shea, said: "We stand ready to invest £2bn to repurpose the Rough field into the world's biggest methane and hydrogen storage facility, bolstering the UK's energy security, delivering a net zero electricity system by 2035, creating 5,000 skilled jobs and decarbonising the UK's industrial clusters by 2040.”
But he said to do this “we need the right regulatory support framework”.