ELEGANCY: The Interdisciplinary Approach of the German Case Study to Enable a Low Carbon Economy by Hydrogen and CCS

Abstract

The goal of the multinational ACT project ELEGANCY is to accelerate the decarbonisation of the European energy system by exploiting synergies between carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen (H2). The introduction of CCS is delayed due to lack of business models, the widespread use of H2 is hindered by the cost and availability of large quantities of clean hydrogen. The five participating countries Norway, England, Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany want to investigate and evaluate the combination of a hydrogen infrastructure with CCS in case studies and develop a planning tool. The Ruhr-University Bochum is working interdisciplinarily with five institutes within the framework of the Research Department Closed Carbon Cycle Economy (RD-CCCE). Thus, in addition to the technical part, social, macroeconomic and legal aspects are considered in the German case study. This interdisciplinary approach is presented in this paper, describing the practices of the different disciplines.