A techno-economic analysis of global renewable hydrogen value chains

Many countries, especially those with a high energy demand but insufficient renewable resources are currently investigating the role that imported low carbon hydrogen may play in meeting future energy requirements and emission reduction targets. A future hydrogen economy is uncertain and predicated on reduced price of hydrogen delivered to customers. Current hydrogen production, steam reforming of natural gas or coal gasification, is co-located to its end-use as a chemical feedstock. Large-scale multi-source value chains of hydrogen needed to support its use for energy are still at concept phase. This research investigates the combination of technical and economic factors which will determine the viability and competitiveness of two competing large scale renewable hydrogen value chains via ammonia and liquid hydrogen. Using a techno-economic model, an evaluation of whether green hydrogen exports to Germany from countries with low-cost renewable electricity production, but high-costs of storage, distribution and transport will be economically competitive with domestic renewable hydrogen production is conducted. The model, developed in Python, calculates costs and energy losses for each step in the value chain. This includes production from an optimised combination of solar and/or wind generation capacity, optimised storage requirements, conversion to ammonia or liquid hydrogen, distribution, shipping, and reconversion. The model can easily be applied to any scenario by changing the inputs and was used to compare export from Chile, Namibia, and Morocco with production in Germany using a 1 GW electrolyser and 2030 cost scenario in each case.