Abstract
Achieving climate neutrality requires a massive transformation of current energy systems. Fossil energy sources must be replaced with renewable ones. Renewable energy sources with reasonable potential such as photovoltaics or wind power provide electricity. However, since chemical energy carriers are essential for various sectors and applications, the need for renewable gases comes more and more into focus. This paper determines the Austrian green hydrogen potential, produced exclusively from electricity surpluses. In combination with assumed sustainable methane production, the resulting renewable gas import demand is identified, based on two fully decarbonised scenarios for the investigated years 2030, 2040 and 2050. While in one scenario energy efficiency is maximised, in the other scenario significant behavioural changes are considered to reduce the total energy consumption. A techno-economic analysis is used to identify the economically reasonable national green hydrogen potential and to calculate the averaged levelised cost of hydrogen (LCOH2) for each scenario and considered year. Furthermore, roll-out curves for the necessary expansion of national electrolysis plants are presented. The results show that in 2050 about 43% of the national gas demand can be produced nationally and economically (34 TWh green hydrogen, 16 TWh sustainable methane). The resulting national hydrogen production costs are comparable to the expected import costs (including transport costs). The most important actions are the quick and extensive expansion of renewables and electrolysis plants both nationally and internationally.
Highlights
The EU Green Deal [1] aims for climate-neutrality of the European continent by 2050
Since these insights have not been published in any study we found, the following research questions are investigated for Austria: 1. How will the Austrian green hydrogen potential for negative residual loads develop between 2030 and 2050?
The results of the techno-economic analysis are shown (Section 3.2). The latter consists of different aspects such as the economic green hydrogen potential, the resulting averaged LCOH2 as well as the number of electrolyser plants in Austria
Summary
The EU Green Deal [1] aims for climate-neutrality of the European continent by 2050. This goal requires a fundamental transformation of the energy system since fossil sources like natural gas and oil must be replaced by renewable ones. For several sectors (e.g., long-range freight transport or iron and steel making), currently there does not exist an economically viable option for decarbonisation [4]. Hanley et al [6] identified several drivers for hydrogen, such as large renewable generation capacities, decarbonisation in general, cost-efficient decarbonisation of sectors that are otherwise difficult to decarbonise (e.g., freight) and lack of development for carbon capture and storage (CCS). In the publications they investigated, a variety of possible applications for hydrogen were found. The use of hydrogen in the field of transport (e.g., [7,8]), in the field of industry (e.g., [9]) or in the field of energy supply (e.g., [10]) has been recently examined
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