Geotechnical Issues in the Creation of Underground Reservoirs for Massive Energy Storage

The primary objective of this paper is to present and discuss geotechnical issues and challenges for the design and stability of massive energy storage caverns in hard rock formations. In general, the challenges which confront the construction of massive underground caverns are a combination of the geological, hydrological, geochemical, geothermal, and geotechnical. The identification and remediation of the geotechnical challenges will be qualitatively discussed here and this discussion will be anchored with a particular practical example.