Cross-border offshore hydrogen trade and carbon mitigation for Europe's net zero transition

TL;DR

The study addresses Europe’s need for low-carbon energy imports by evaluating cross-border offshore hydrogen trade from Ireland and the UK. It builds a unified bottom-up framework that links offshore wind resources, cost-optimized hydrogen production, domestic power and gas system integration, and an international trading model. The results show that offshore green hydrogen could cut Europe’s CO2 emissions by about 175 Mt/year by 2050, with Denmark most cost-competitive and Ireland emerging as the largest exporter by 2050. Overall, the west-to-east hydrogen flow could reshape Europe’s energy security and significantly advance the net-zero transition.

Abstract

European countries are ambitious in both the net-zero transition and offshore energy resource development. The Irish and UK governments announced their commitments to offshore wind capacities - 37 and 125 GW, respectively, in 2050, more than two times higher than their projected power demands. While other continental countries, such as Germany, are calling for cleaner fuel resources. Exporting surplus offshore green hydrogen and bridging supply and demand could be pivotal in carbon emission mitigation for Europe. Yet, the potentials of these Island countries, are usually underestimated. This paper developed a bottom-up method to investigate the role of offshore hydrogen from Ireland and the UK in the decarbonisation of the entire Europe. We evaluate the future hydrogen/ammonia trading and the contributions of each country in carbon emission mitigation, considering their relative cost-competitiveness in offshore hydrogen production, domestic hourly power and gas system operation, and international shipping costs. Results indicate that the offshore green hydrogen could reduce 175.16 Mt/year of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe. The UK will be the largest hydrogen supplier from 2030 to 2040, while surpassed by Ireland in 2050, with 161 TWh of hydrogen exports to France and Spain. The offshore green hydrogen can contribute to 175.16 Mt of annual carbon dioxide emission reductions in total. This general flow of hydrogen from the West to the East not only facilitates Europe's net-zero progress, but also reshapes the energy supply structure and helps to ensure energy security across the European continent.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: LCOH map and wind speed in coastal European countries.a LCOH map in EEZs of coastal European countries. The black line outlines the EEZs. b Probability density of wind speed for each country. The vertical grey line in each figure shows the wind speed most likely to occur. BE, DK, FR, DE, IE, NL, NO, PT, ES, SE, and GB are the abbreviations for Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, respectively.
• Figure 2: Hydrogen cost-supply curves for different countries at different years. The cost-supply curves of green hydrogen produced by countries in 2030, 2040, and 2050 are shown in a, b, and c, respectively. Different colours of solid lines represent different countries. Green and blue dots on Ireland's and the UK's curves marked their goals for offshore wind capacities. Grey areas represent the possible range of blue hydrogen production prices in the future.
• Figure 3: Cost-competitiveness of offshore green hydrogen among major countries and with blue hydrogen. Rank means the ranks of average/marginal LCOH among 11 countries; Marginal means the LCOH at the offshore capacity of that country in the corresponding year; Average means the LCOH of sum-up average of all offshore wind capacities in the corresponding year; Low-price hydrogen means the capacity of hydrogen production whose production cost is lower than the upper bound of blue hydrogen. The size of the circle indicates the capacity of low-priced hydrogen. The smallest and largest size indicates 0 and >100 GW, and other sizes indicate the capacities between these two values.
• Figure 4: Power system operation results. Different years, seasons, hydrogen blending ratios, and export conditions, are compared. 2030, 2040, and 2050 indicate the year; sum and win mean a typical summer day (high wind and low demand) and a typical winter day (low wind and high demand), respectively; 0%, 20%, and 100% mean different maximum allowed hydrogen blending potential; ex means export.
• Figure 5: Utilisation of offshore wind.a, b, and c decouple the utilisation of wind in 2030, 2040, and 2050, respectively.