Rough at 54 bcf. UK gas storage rebuilt in a summer.

Centrica Storage re-opened the Rough gas storage facility offshore East Yorkshire in 2022 following partial closure in 2017, then doubled storage capacity in summer 2023 to 54 billion cubic feet — approximately half of all current UK gas storage. Annual consent extensions from the North Sea Transition Authority continue, most recently in 2025. Centrica has announced a £2 billion long-term plan to redevelop Rough as Europe's largest hydrogen storage facility, subject to UK Government regulatory model agreement.

The Rough story sits inside the wider UK gas supply security framework. The 2022 European gas crisis exposed how thin UK gas storage capacity had become relative to comparable European countries — France, Germany and Italy historically hold higher storage as a share of annual demand. UK supply security depends instead on a portfolio: Norwegian Continental Shelf pipelines (Langeled, Norpipe, Vesterled, the largest single UK import source), LNG terminals (Isle of Grain ~25%, South Hook ~20-25%, Dragon smaller), bidirectional pipeline interconnection (IUK Bacton-Zeebrugge, BBL Bacton-Balgzand, Moffat-Moy to Ireland) and declining North Sea production.

For NGT as system operator, for LNG terminal operators, for North Sea operators + NSTA, and for the cross-border interconnection framework, the next decade is shaped by three variables: how quickly gas demand declines under heat decarbonisation (Gap 46), how the hydrogen storage capacity scales alongside (Gap 44 pathway selection), and how cross-utility resilience under cold winter + low wind concurrence is coordinated through NESO + NGT + DESNZ.

Hydrogen storage emergence is the next strategic challenge. Salt cavern storage is most suitable for hydrogen given material + geological properties. Centrica + INEOS are exploring salt cavern hydrogen storage.

Cluster integration with East Coast Cluster + HyNet (Gap 33) drives strategic alignment. HAR + hydrogen production scale-up drives storage demand (Gap 13).

GridteamAI's Gap 45 report covers UK gas storage + LNG supply security end-to-end — the Rough re-opening + expansion, the LNG terminal portfolio, the pipeline interconnection, the North Sea decline trajectory, the hydrogen storage emergence and the DESNZ Security of Supply Statement framework.