Importing hydrogen from abroad
Is it economically viable and sustainable to produce hydrogen outside the EU and import it over very long distances to consumers in the Union? The answer is yes, according to ENCOURGAE, an EU-funded project. Funded under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), the project analysed the production potential of hydrogen centres outside EU, namely in Morocco, Algeria, Iceland, Norway, Turkey and the Ukraine. Centres were also identified in Romania and Bulgaria, which, at the time of the analysis, were outside the EU. These centres focus on clean sources or renewable energy sources such as solar thermal energy, wind, power, geothermal, hydropower and biomass. The project's study found that together the production centres could meet Europe's total hydrogen needs of the lowest hydrogen penetration scenario (400 terawatt-hour by 2040) and half of the highest scenario (over 1,000 Twh). North Africa has the largest potential (wind and solar), followed by Turkey (biomass) and Norway (Hydro). But these production sources can lead to high transportation costs, compression costs at filling stations and further carbon emissions for fossil fuel based paths, which need to be assessed globally. To lower costs, the study recommends considering only large-scale solutions in order to exploit economies of scale. Of all the hydrogen corridors analysed, hydrogen or geothermal power from Iceland offers the cheapest hydrogen and the lowest barriers with respect to competing alternative use of it. This is followed by hydrogen from hydropower in Norway and Romania. Hydrogen could therefore be imported first from these selected corridors and used as a transport fuel. Once the demand for hydrogen (more than 10% of vehicles running on hydrogen by 2030) increases, then a wider portfolio may be considered, says the study. It concludes by underlining the need for further research on these hydrogen corridors to weigh up the pros and cons of them.