Centrica has nearly doubled available gas storage at its Rough gas storage, located off the coast of East Yorkshire (United Kingdom), in an attempt to improve the UK’s energy resilience for the winter 2023-2024. Rough is the largest gas storage facility in the UK, with a total capacity of 3.3 bcm. It was closed in 2017 due to safety concerns, but was partly reopened in October 2022 with a reduced storage capacity of 30 bcf (around 850 mcm). The storage site is now able to store up to 54 bcf (around 1.5 bcm), which would provide the equivalent volume of gas to heat 2.4 million homes over winter.
In addition, Centrica aims 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 and plans to invest £2bn (€2.3bn) to repurpose it.
On top of Rough, the United Kingdom has 8 underground gas storage facilities, with a total capacity of 1.4 bcm (less than 2% of the national consumption in 2020). The country has one of the lowest levels of gas storage in Europe, at 12 days average or 7.5 peak winter days (compared to 89 days in Germany or 123 days in the Netherlands).