There is an ongoing debate as to whether hydrogen could be the key to sustainable decarbonisation for a range of different domains. Above all in industry and in the transport sector it would appear that hydrogen-based solutions can make an important contribution in this respect. It would also seem that hydrogen is indispensable when it comes to the transportation of large quantities of energy.
Set against this backdrop, a team of experts from umlaut and from consultancy firm Kongstein, who focus on the maritime industries, have been carrying out investigations into the generation of large quantities of renewable electricity using offshore wind platforms in the North Sea, its conversion locally into green hydrogen, and a way of transporting it to large-scale, industrial users in inland areas that would be as economical as possible whilst still being workable with regard to time constraints and technical factors. As well as looking at the production of the hydrogen, they also considered various transport vectors and drew up a detailed assessment in each case. At the end of their investigations, they were able to present a comprehensive estimate of the end-to-end costs, depending on the transport route used, and thus the so called Levelized Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH), at the place where it is produced.
The findings of the study firstly highlight the opportunities for implementation of such a project and go on to focus on the economic viability of this important option for the large-scale, self-sufficient supply of various individual European industrial sectors with green hydrogen that has been produced in Europe. The investigation also considers the global context by comparing the economic viability of the idea with that of a fictitious scenario involving global imports from predestined producer countries in North Africa or the Middle East.
