Time-phased geospatial siting analysis for renewable hydrogen production facilities under a billion-kilogram-scale build-out using California as an example

For renewable hydrogen to be a significant part of the future decarbonized energy and transportation sectors, a rapid and massive build-out of hydrogen production facilities will be needed. This paper describes a geospatial modeling approach to identifying the optimal locations for renewable hydrogen fuel production throughout the state of California, based on least-cost generation and transport. This is accomplished by (1) estimating and projecting California renewable hydrogen demand scenarios through the year 2050, (2) identifying feedstock locations, (3) excluding areas not suitable for development, and (4) selecting optimal site locations using commercial geospatial modeling software. The findings indicate that there is a need for hundreds of new renewable hydrogen production facilities in the decades preceding the year 2050. In selecting sites for development, feedstock availability by technology type is the driving factor.     

The importance of hydrogen for energy diversity of Turkey's energy production: 2030 projection

Hydrogen and hydrogen-related technologies will have an important role in world energy projection in the near future. Interest in hydrogen technologies will also increase, especially due to the smart cities concept and the increase in renewable energy supply. In addition to being a clean energy source, the tendency of hydrogen to 100% renewable energy supply makes it ahead of other alternative fuels. The share of hydrogen and related energy technologies in reducing global warming and emissions will continue to increase day by day. For this reason, projections and investment opportunities should be determined for the coming years. In energy projections, the evaluation of hydrogen in terms of energy diversity until 2030 is carried out with EnergyPlan software. Accordingly, the reduction in the amount of emissions and costs were determined by mixing hydrogen into the natural gas pipelines by 5–10, and 20% by volume by producing electrolyzers with photovoltaic systems and according to the number of vehicles with fuel cells in the transportation sector until 2030.     

Adapting the French nuclear fleet to integrate variable renewable energies via the production of hydrogen: Towards massive production of low carbon hydrogen?

Producing low-carbon hydrogen at a competitive rate is becoming a new challenge with respect to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We examine this issue in the French context, which is characterised by a high nuclear share and the target to increase variable renewables by 2050. The goal is to evaluate the extent to which excess nuclear power could contribute to producing low-carbon hydrogen.Our approach involves designing scenarios for nuclear and renewables, modelling and evaluating the potential nuclear hydrogen production volumes and costs, examining the latter through the scope of hydrogen market attractiveness and evaluating the potential of CO₂ mitigation.This article shows that as renewable shares increase, along with the hydrogen market expected growth driven by mobility uses, opportunities are created for the nuclear operator. If nuclear capacities are maintained, nuclear hydrogen production could correspond to the demand by 2030. If not, possibilities could still exist by 2050.     

Potential of renewable hydrogen production for energy supply in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is highly vulnerable to energy and economic security due to the heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels. The combustion of fossil fuels also causes serious environmental pollution. Therefore, it is important to explore the opportunities for clean renewable energy for long-term energy supply. Hong Kong has the potential to develop clean renewable hydrogen energy to improve the environmental performance. This paper reviews the recent development of hydrogen production technologies, followed by an overview of the renewable energy sources and a discussion about potential applications for renewable hydrogen production in Hong Kong. The results show that although renewable energy resources cannot entirely satisfy the energy demand in Hong Kong, solar energy, wind power, and biomass are available renewable sources for significant hydrogen production. A system consisting of wind turbines and photovoltaic (PV) panels coupled with electrolyzers is a promising design to produce hydrogen. Biomass, especially organic waste, offers an economical, environmental-friendly way for renewable hydrogen production. The achievable hydrogen energy output would be as much as 40% of the total energy consumption in transportation.     

Biomass gasification for sustainable energy production: A review

Gasification process is considered as one of the best routes of energy recovery from biomass by producing syngas mostly including H₂, CO, and CH₄. Biomass as the main renewable energy resources has great advantages regarding its diversity, availability, and sustainability for supplying energy needs in heat, electricity production, biofuel production for transportation, etc. Various gasifiers based on the gasifying process and agents have been examined. This paper reviewed the theory of biomass gasification by comparing and analyzing different gasification models-designs and configurations, also different operational conditions. It aimed to bring a holistic approach for hydrogen rich syngas production based on the present technologies, techno-economic analysis, and industrial/commercialization pathways. The biomass gasification technologies need to be improved for hydrogen production regarding the global environmental and economic issues. The review provided better insights into the enhancement of syngas production from biomass.     

Marketability analysis of green hydrogen production in Denmark: Scale-up effects on grid-connected electrolysis

Green hydrogen is produced through different methods in the lab but only a few technologies are commercialized. Cost reduction is widely expected to compete with the existing carbon-emitting alternatives. This paper compares alkaline, proton exchange membrane, and solid oxide electrolysis cells as the dominant technologies. Economic analyses with scale-up effects show meaningful differences between PEM and alkaline electrolyzers as relatively settled methods and solid oxide as an immature technology. Monte Carlo simulations on grid-connected electrolysis using the Danish electricity market confirm that both PEM and alkaline electrolyzers can already produce hydrogen with less than 3 €/Kg if taxes and levies are removed. The price may even drop below 2 €/Kg after the mass adoption of all three technologies. Furthermore, if electricity is delivered at half prices, the levelized cost of hydrogen falls around 1 €/Kg. The capabilities for cost reduction after scaling-up are 33%, 34%, and 50% in alkaline, PEM, and solid oxide electrolyzers respectively while they could get intensified with subsidization to 56%, 59%, and 70%. The results indicate that solid oxide electrolyzers can be as economical as alkaline and PEM ones. However, grey hydrogen seems to remain unbeatable without subsidized electricity and/or carbon tax adjustments.     

Improving appraisal of sustainability of energy options – A view from Slovenia

The new Slovenian approach to systematic, transparent, and reproducible appraisal of sustainability as related to electricity production is presented. The common sustainability components, i.e. economy, environment, and society, are integrated into evaluation of the feasibility, rationality, and uncertainty of the energy mix alternatives. A three stage model has been applied for this sustainability appraisal. The first level deals with alternative technologies for electricity production, the second with alternative mixtures of technologies for meeting electricity needs by 2050, and the third takes into account the expected timing of shutting-down existing old power plants and constructing the new ones. Technology alternatives cover both conventional and renewable energy sources: coal fired, gas fired, biomass fired, oil fired, nuclear, hydro, wind, and photovoltaic. The results show that only mixtures of nuclear, hydro, and gas fired technologies are reliable and rational in the context of meeting expected energy needs. The expected share of energy produced by wind and photovoltaic technology is between 8% and 15%, which makes them less sustainable than other technologies. Eventually, they do not meet sustainability goals from the economic and social points of view.     

Flexible sector coupling with hydrogen: A climate-friendly fuel supply for road transport

The substantial expansion of renewable energy sources is creating the foundation to successfully transform the German energy sector (the so-called ‘Energiewende’). A by-product of this development is the corresponding capacity demand for the transportation, distribution and storage of energy. Hydrogen produced by electrolysis offers a promising solution to these challenges, although the willingness to invest in hydrogen technologies requires the identification of competitive and climate-friendly pathways in the long run. Therefore, this paper employs a pathway analysis to investigate the use of renewable hydrogen in the German passenger car transportation sector in terms of varying market penetration scenarios for fuel cell-electric vehicles (FCEVs). The investigation focuses on how an H₂ infrastructure can be designed on a national scale with various supply chain networks to establish robust pathways and important technologies, which has not yet been done. Therefore, the study includes all related aspects, from hydrogen production to fueling stations, for a given FCEV market penetration scenario, as well as the CO₂ reduction potential that can be achieved for the transport sector. A total of four scenarios are considered, estimating an FCEV market share of 1–75% by the year 2050. This corresponds to an annual production of 0.02–2.88 million tons of hydrogen. The findings show that the most cost-efficient H₂ supply (well-to-tank: 6.7–7.5 €/kg_H2) can be achieved in high demand scenarios (FCEV market shares of 30% and 75%) through a combination of cavern storage and pipeline transport. For low-demand scenarios, however, technology pathways involving LH₂ and LOHC truck transport represent the most cost-efficient options (well-to-tank: 8.2–11.4 €/kg_H2).     

Recognizing the role of uncertainties in the transition to renewable hydrogen

Achieving the goal of net zero emissions targeted by many governments and businesses around the world will require an economical zero-emissions fuel, such as hydrogen. Currently, the high production cost of zero emission ‘renewable’ hydrogen, produced from electrolysis powered by renewable electricity, is hindering its adoption. In this paper, we examine the role of uncertainties in projections of techno-economic factors on the transition from hydrogen produced from fossil fuels to renewable hydrogen. We propose an integrated framework, linking techno-economic and Monte-Carlo based uncertainty analysis with quantitative hydrogen supply-demand modelling, to examine hydrogen production by different technologies, and the associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from both the feedstock supply and the production process. The results show that the uncertainty around the cost of electrolyser systems, the capacity factor, and the gas price are the most critical factors affecting the timing of the transition to renewable H₂. We find that hydrogen production will likely be dominated by fossil fuels for the next few decades if the cost of carbon emissions are not accounted for, resulting in cumulative emissions from hydrogen production of 650 Mt CO₂-e by 2050. However, implementing a price on carbon emissions can significantly expedite the transition to renewable hydrogen and cut the cumulative emissions significantly.     

The investment costs of electrolysis – A comparison of cost studies from the past 30 years

Water electrolysis is a promising technology for storing surplus energy from intermittent renewable energy sources in the form of hydrogen. The future investment costs of water electrolysis represent one key challenge for a hydrogen-based energy system. In this work, a literature review was conducted to evaluate the published data on investment costs and learning rates for PEM and alkaline electrolyzers from the 1990s until 2017 and the years beyond. The collected data are adjusted for inflation and specified in €₂₀₁₇ per kW-output using the higher heating value (HHV). R&D efforts have led to impressive cost reductions in the observed period, especially for PEM technology, while cost reductions for alkaline technology have also been decent. The overall spread of the cost estimations in the 1990s was in a range between 306 and 4748 €₂₀₁₇/kW_HHV-Output. Today's estimations for future investment costs (through 2030) for both technologies are narrowed towards values of 397 and 955 €₂₀₁₇/kW_HHV-Output. Higher automation, mass production, larger cell areas, market penetration and technology development will all have a further impact on the investment costs.     

Societal penetration of hydrogen into the future energy system: Impacts of policy,technology and carbon targets

Decarbonization of the energy system is a key goal of the Paris Agreements, in order to limit temperature rises to under 2° Celsius. Hydrogen has the potential to play a key role through its versatile production methods, end uses and as a storage medium for renewable energy, engendering the future low-carbon energy system. This research uses a global model cognizant of energy policy, technology learning curves and international carbon reduction targets to optimize the future energy system in terms of cost and carbon emissions to the year 2050. Exploring combinations of four exploratory scenarios incorporating hydrogen city gas blend levels, nuclear restrictions, regional emission reduction obligations and carbon capture and storage deployment timelines, it was identified that hydrogen has the potential to supply approximately two percent of global energy needs by 2050. Irrespective of the quantity of hydrogen produced, the transport sector and passenger fuel cell vehicles are consistently a preferential end use for future hydrogen across regions and modeled scenarios. In addition to the potential contribution of hydrogen, a shift toward renewable energy and a significant role for carbon capture and storage is identified to underpin carbon target achievement by 2050.     

Heterogeneous policies,heterogeneous technologies: The case of renewable energy

This paper investigates empirically the effect of market regulation and renewable energy policies on innovation activity in different renewable energy technologies. For the EU countries and the years 1980 to 2007, we built a unique dataset containing information on patent production in eight different technologies, proxies of market regulation and technology-specific renewable energy policies. Our main finding is that, compared to privatisation and unbundling, reducing entry barriers is a more significant driver of renewable energy innovation, but that its effect varies across technologies and is stronger in technologies characterised by potential entry of small, independent power producers. In addition, the inducement effect of renewable energy policies is heterogeneous and more pronounced for wind, which is the only technology that is mature and has high technological potential. Finally, ratification of the Kyoto protocol, which determined a more stable and less uncertain policy framework, amplifies the inducement effect of both energy policy and market liberalisation.     

Renewable energy: Externality costs as market barriers

This paper addresses the impact of environmentally based market failure constraints on the adoption of renewable energy technologies through the quantification in financial terms of the externalities of electric power generation, for a range of alternative commercial and almost-commercial technologies. It is shown that estimates of damage costs resulting from combustion of fossil fuels, if internalised into the price of the resulting output of electricity, could lead to a number of renewable technologies being financially competitive with generation from coal plants. However, combined cycle natural gas technology would have a significant financial advantage over both coal and renewables under current technology options and market conditions. On the basis of cost projections made under the assumption of mature technologies and the existence of economies of scale, renewable technologies would possess a significant social cost advantage if the externalities of power production were to be “internalised”. Incorporating environmental externalities explicitly into the electricity tariff today would serve to hasten this transition process.     

Biomass energy in developing countries

Energy from biomass already forms an important part of the world economy, especially in the form of traditional fuels. The author explains how the resource base is very large even under present technologies and may be larger under better techniques of cultivation or through genetic engineering. Gasification of wood and the production of charcoal are two of the most promising bioenergy technologies, with the production of alcohol from sugarcane a stronger contender under present world sugar market conditions. There are particular constraints for all renewable fuels, including bioenergy — such as uncertainty in oil prices — plus the special problems of competition with agriculture and confusion of planning authority. This paper examines the present role of biomass energy, the resource base for future development, some promising energy conversion technologies and uses and a few constraints on the development of bioenergy.     

Hydrogen economy in Taiwan and biohydrogen

This study analyzed how production technology advances and how economic structure reformation affects transition to a hydrogen economy in Taiwan before 2030. A model, called “Taiwan general equilibrium model-energy, for hydrogen (TAIGEM-EH)”, was the forecast tool used to consider steam reforming of natural gas, the biodegradation of biomass and water electrolysis using nuclear power or renewable energies of hydrogen production industries. Owing to increase in the prices of oil and concern for global warming effects, hydrogen will have a 10.3% share in 2030 when demands for hydrogen production could be met if strong technological progress in hydrogen production were made. With reformed economic structure and strong support to progress in production technologies, hydrogen's share can reach 22.1% in 2030 and become the dominating energy source from then onwards. In the four scenarios studied, including developing country with three levels of effort and developed country with strong effort, the biohydrogen production industry can become a main supplier of hydrogen in the market if its technological progress can be competitive to other _CO2${\mathrm{CO}}_2$-free alternatives.     

A global and local endogenous experience curve model for projecting future uptake and cost of electricity generation technologies

A global and local learning model (GALLM) has been developed to project the cost and global uptake of different electricity generation technologies to the year 2050. This model features three regions, endogenous technological learning within and across those regions, various government policies to facilitate technological learning and a penalty constraint which is used to mimic the effect market forces play on the capital cost of electricity generation technologies. This constraint has been added as market forces have been a strong factor in technology pricing in recent years. Global, regional and component experience curves have been developed for some technologies. The model, with the inclusion of these features, projects a diverse range of technologies contributing to global electricity generation under a carbon price scenario. The penalty constraint leads to gradual and continual installations of technologies and because the constraint provides a disincentive to install too much of a technology, it reduces the impact of uncertainty in the learning rate. Alternative forms of the penalty constraint were tested for their suitability; it was found that, with a zero and lower-cost version of the constraint, photovoltaics are installed in a boom-and-bust cycle, which is not supported by past experience. When the constraint is set at a high level, there are fewer installations.     

Review of renewable energy-based hydrogen production processes for sustainable energy innovation

In this review, we primarily analyze the hydrogen production technologies based on water and biomass, including the economic, technological, and environmental impacts of different types of hydrogen production technologies based on these materials, and comprehensively compare them. Our analyses indicate that all renewable energy-based approaches for hydrogen production are more environmentally friendly than fossil-based hydrogen generation approaches. However, the technical ease and economic efficiency of hydrogen production from renewable sources of energy needs to be further improved in order to be applied on a large scale. Compared with other renewable energy-based methods, hydrogen production via biomass electrolysis has several advantages, including the ease of directly using raw biomass. Furthermore, its environmental impact is smaller than other approaches. Moreover, using a noble metal, catalyst-free anode for this approach can ensure a considerably low power consumption, which makes it a promising candidate for clean and efficient hydrogen production in the future.     

Boosting new renewable technologies towards grid parity – Economic and policy aspects

The intensity of market penetration and hence the relevance of clean energy technologies in mitigating climate change will greatly depend on their cost-effectiveness. This paper discusses the economic and policy aspects of speeding up the market of these technologies to reach cost parity. A combination of historical energy market dynamics, technology diffusion and endogenous learning models were employed in the analyses. Starting from giving a preferential position to emerging renewable energy technologies in the energy and climate policy, which also means securing adequate financial resources for their deployment, could lead in the base scenario to a full-cost breakthrough of wind power around 2027 and of photovoltaics in 2032. The combined global market share of renewable electricity in 2050 could reach 62% of all electricity (now 19%) of which wind and solar power alone could account for almost two-thirds corresponding to a carbon saving in the range of 8–16 GtCO₂. However, if the new technologies were downgraded in the energy and climate policy context, the combined impact of solar and wind could remain at no less than 11% which would marginalize these technologies in the fight against climate change. The estimates for financial support to achieve cost parity were very sensitive to the assumptions of the input parameters: in the base case the extra costs or learning investments for solar power were €1432 billion and for wind power €327 billion, but with more conservative input data these values could grow manifold. On the other hand, considering the potentially cheaper electricity from new technologies above the cost parity point and putting a price on carbon could result in a positive yield from public support instead of it being regarded merely as unnecessary spending. The findings stress the necessity of long-term policies and strong commercialization strategies to bring the new energy technologies to breakeven point, but also highlight the complexity of assessing the true costs of making new energy technologies fully competitive.     

Hydrogen production technologies: Attractiveness and future perspective

Transition to more renewable energies to render current energy demand and set aside conventional resources for the next generation needs promising strategies. Frame the future energy plan to address the energy crisis requires to have insight and foresight about the hereafter of technologies and their markets. Among different renewable energy resources, hydrogen demonstrates an encouraging future. Therefore, understanding the flexibility and compatibility of hydrogen production technologies is important to pave the way for this transition. One strategy to achieve the mentioned targets is to evaluate different hydrogen technologies based on their life cycle and their acceptance at the commercial scale. For the very first time, various hydrogen production technologies are evaluated in terms of the technology life cycle. A novel approach is employed to find the current state of the hydrogen production technologies market. By applying simple and free tools such as search traffic and patent search, the technology adoption curve and technology life cycle of each hydrogen production technology is assessed. Two criteria are utilized for this matter, patents as a technical indicator and Google trend as a technology interest indicator. For this matter 35 088 patents have been extracted and analysed. Then the data are fitted by logistic function curve to foresight different technologies' life cycle. The technology attractiveness of each hydrogen production technologies is determined by obtaining the ratio of published patents to granted ones. The level of acceptance of each hydrogen technology is assessed by using an adaptation diagram. By the combination of these two diagrams, the current status and future of the technologies are achieved and validated. Findings show that most of the hydrogen production technologies are in the slope of enlightenment and plateau of productivity stages.     

A grey-based group decision-making methodology for the selection of hydrogen technologies in life cycle sustainability perspective

The objective of this research is to develop a grey-based group decision-making methodology for the selection of the best renewable energy technology (including hydrogen) using a life cycle sustainability perspective. The traditional grey relational analysis has been modified to better address the issue of uncertainty. The proposed methodology allows multi-person to participate in the decision-making process and to give linguistic evaluation on the weights of the criteria and the performance of the alternative technologies. In this paper, twelve hydrogen production technologies have been assessed using the proposed methodology, electrolysis of water technology by hydropower has been considered to be the best technology for hydrogen production according to the decision-making group.