Assessment of the role of green hydrogen as the commodity enabling a new green dialogue among the Mediterranean shores

Abstract

The Mediterranean basin has been characterized by a net flow of fossil commodities from the North African shore to Southern Europe and the Middle East for decades; however, decarbonizing the energy system implies to substantially modify this situation, turning the current “black dialogue” into a “green dialogue” (i.e., based on the exchange of renewable electricity and green hydrogen). This paper presents a feasibility study conducted to estimate the potential green hydrogen production by electrolysis in three Tunisian sites. It shows and compares several plant layouts, varying the size and typology of renewable electricity generators and electrolyzers. The work adopts local weather data and technical features of the technologies in the computations, and accounts for site specific topographical and infrastructural constraints, such as land available for construction and local power grid connection capacities. It shows that configurations able to produce large quantities of green hydrogen may not be compliant with such constraints, basically nullifying their contribution in any hydrogen strategy. Finally, results show that the LCOH lies in the range 1.34 $/kgH2 and 4.06 $/kgH2 depending on both the location and the combination of renewable electricity generators and electrolyzers.