Green hydrogen multi-market optimisation: real complementarities or temporary transaction costs?

Abstract

The French strategy on hydrogen deployment shows good perspectives at 2050, yet at short term, the economics of clean hydrogen remains ambiguous, and locally inhibits investments. This study evaluates wind-hydrogen project applications at different milestones, following a roadmap of hydrogen industry maturity built over the entire supply chain. Simple linear interpolations are assumed to draw the path of deployment and pave the way for the H2 ecosystem. Hydrogen is here obtained from a dedicated far-offshore wind farm and targets primarily the use in transportation, following policy agenda priorities of maritime transport which could also trigger the H2 demand in industry, gas and power sector. By means of an optimization algorithm, the operation of hybrid wind-hydrogen is simulated to set the size of the necessary infrastructure, under the constraint of H2 delivery timeline (daily or weekly). For instance, the harbor of Saint-Nazaire will distribute at least 4 t H2 per day in 2050 for maritime and road transport, needing the installation of 60 MW of wind energy capacity. Residually it could supply 1,880 t H2 for industry and energy sector, yet, the sectors' coupling hinders business ecosystem building that remains essential to economies of scale and industry establishment. These orders of magnitudes are crucial for the hydrogen industry planning and highly needed by policy makers to set commitments and build regional hydrogen roadmaps for next decades.