IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v351y2023ics0306261923012849.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The environmental impact of renewable hydrogen supply chains: Local vs. remote production and long-distance hydrogen transport

Author

Listed:
  • Hermesmann, M.
  • Tsiklios, C.
  • Müller, T.E.

Abstract

As a secondary energy source, hydrogen produced by water electrolysis is a promising way to sustainably use electricity generated from primary renewable resources. Thereby, hydrogen is not only a highly relevant feedstock for producing chemical products, such as fertilizers and platform chemicals, but also a valuable energy carrier that can be readily transported and stored. This study explores how transporting renewable hydrogen via pipeline from regions with high renewable energy potential to large consumer centers can help overcome current challenges in ensuring a climate-friendly renewable energy supply. To this end, this work assesses the environmental impacts of cross-border hydrogen supply chains relative to the attained operating hours of local hydrogen production and the required hydrogen transport distance via pipeline. Environmental hotspots along the hydrogen supply chain and the main parameters affecting the overall environmental impact were identified. Remarkably, an environmental trade-off emerges: the most suitable local conditions for producing renewable hydrogen need to be balanced against the distance of hydrogen transport to consumers. Nonetheless, the relevance of the transport distance decreases with an increasing share of renewable energies in the electricity mix for operating the compressor stations of the pipeline network. Considering the ongoing transition towards renewable power generation technologies, our results indicate that long-distance hydrogen transport via pipeline is environmentally justified provided that the share of renewable energies used to operate the compressor stations increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Hermesmann, M. & Tsiklios, C. & Müller, T.E., 2023. "The environmental impact of renewable hydrogen supply chains: Local vs. remote production and long-distance hydrogen transport," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 351(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:351:y:2023:i:c:s0306261923012849
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.121920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261923012849
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.121920?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tsiklios, C. & Hermesmann, M. & Müller, T.E., 2022. "Hydrogen transport in large-scale transmission pipeline networks: Thermodynamic and environmental assessment of repurposed and new pipeline configurations," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    2. Hermesmann, M. & Grübel, K. & Scherotzki, L. & Müller, T.E., 2021. "Promising pathways: The geographic and energetic potential of power-to-x technologies based on regeneratively obtained hydrogen," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Wang, Mingyong & Wang, Zhi & Gong, Xuzhong & Guo, Zhancheng, 2014. "The intensification technologies to water electrolysis for hydrogen production – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 573-588.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Burton, N.A. & Padilla, R.V. & Rose, A. & Habibullah, H., 2021. "Increasing the efficiency of hydrogen production from solar powered water electrolysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    2. Ana L. Santos & Maria-João Cebola & Diogo M. F. Santos, 2021. "Towards the Hydrogen Economy—A Review of the Parameters That Influence the Efficiency of Alkaline Water Electrolyzers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-35, May.
    3. Diego Bairrão & João Soares & José Almeida & John F. Franco & Zita Vale, 2023. "Green Hydrogen and Energy Transition: Current State and Prospects in Portugal," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Woong Hee Lee & Young-Jin Ko & Jung Hwan Kim & Chang Hyuck Choi & Keun Hwa Chae & Hansung Kim & Yun Jeong Hwang & Byoung Koun Min & Peter Strasser & Hyung-Suk Oh, 2021. "High crystallinity design of Ir-based catalysts drives catalytic reversibility for water electrolysis and fuel cells," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Gómez, Sergio Yesid & Hotza, Dachamir, 2016. "Current developments in reversible solid oxide fuel cells," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 155-174.
    6. Jiang, Dongyue & Yang, Wenming & Tang, Aikun, 2016. "A refractory selective solar absorber for high performance thermochemical steam reforming," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 286-292.
    7. Darband, Ghasem Barati & Aliofkhazraei, Mahmood & Shanmugam, Sangaraju, 2019. "Recent advances in methods and technologies for enhancing bubble detachment during electrochemical water splitting," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Lim, Dongjun & Lee, Boreum & Lee, Hyunjun & Byun, Manhee & Lim, Hankwon, 2022. "Projected cost analysis of hybrid methanol production from tri-reforming of methane integrated with various water electrolysis systems: Technical and economic assessment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    9. Ju, HyungKuk & Badwal, Sukhvinder & Giddey, Sarbjit, 2018. "A comprehensive review of carbon and hydrocarbon assisted water electrolysis for hydrogen production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 502-533.
    10. Huang, Yuming & Zhou, Wei & Xie, Liang & Li, Jiayi & He, Yong & Chen, Shuai & Meng, Xiaoxiao & Gao, Jihui & Qin, Yukun, 2022. "Edge and defect sites in porous activated coke enable highly efficient carbon-assisted water electrolysis for energy-saving hydrogen production," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 283-292.
    11. Fiammetta Rita Bianchi & Arianna Baldinelli & Linda Barelli & Giovanni Cinti & Emilio Audasso & Barbara Bosio, 2020. "Multiscale Modeling for Reversible Solid Oxide Cell Operation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-16, September.
    12. Marcelo Azevedo Benetti & Florin Iov, 2023. "A Novel Scheme to Allocate the Green Energy Transportation Costs—Application to Carbon Captured and Hydrogen," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-20, March.
    13. Lin, Chiu-Yue & Nguyen, Thi Mai-Linh & Chu, Chen-Yeon & Leu, Hoang-Jyh & Lay, Chyi-How, 2018. "Fermentative biohydrogen production and its byproducts: A mini review of current technology developments," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 4215-4220.
    14. Yang, Yang & Li, Jun & Yang, Yingrui & Lan, Linghan & Liu, Run & Fu, Qian & Zhang, Liang & Liao, Qiang & Zhu, Xun, 2022. "Gradient porous electrode-inducing bubble splitting for highly efficient hydrogen evolution," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    15. Bellocchi, Sara & De Falco, Marcello & Gambini, Marco & Manno, Michele & Stilo, Tommaso & Vellini, Michela, 2019. "Opportunities for power-to-Gas and Power-to-liquid in CO2-reduced energy scenarios: The Italian case," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 847-861.
    16. Frattini, D. & Cinti, G. & Bidini, G. & Desideri, U. & Cioffi, R. & Jannelli, E., 2016. "A system approach in energy evaluation of different renewable energies sources integration in ammonia production plants," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 472-482.
    17. Bhandari, Ramchandra, 2022. "Green hydrogen production potential in West Africa – Case of Niger," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 800-811.
    18. Klein, Bruno Colling & Chagas, Mateus Ferreira & Junqueira, Tassia Lopes & Rezende, Mylene Cristina Alves Ferreira & Cardoso, Terezinha de Fátima & Cavalett, Otavio & Bonomi, Antonio, 2018. "Techno-economic and environmental assessment of renewable jet fuel production in integrated Brazilian sugarcane biorefineries," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 290-305.
    19. Scott, Keith, 2018. "Process intensification: An electrochemical perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1406-1426.
    20. Yang, Zaoli & Ahmad, Salman & Bernardi, Andrea & Shang, Wen-long & Xuan, Jin & Xu, Bing, 2023. "Evaluating alternative low carbon fuel technologies using a stakeholder participation-based q-rung orthopair linguistic multi-criteria framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 332(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:351:y:2023:i:c:s0306261923012849. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.