Hydrogen is often referred to as the ultimate energy carrier with the attributes to provide clean and sustainable energy. Today, both ecological and economic reasons stand against the production of hydrogen from fossil fuels. Besides barriers for hydrogen production, also transportation, storage and dispensing of hydrogen imply technical and economic problems. Hydrogen technology is already in use for several decades for industrial purposes and in space applications. Nevertheless it is a challenge to estimate the costs for the infrastructure at a certain degree of technology diffusion because costs largely depend on the dimensioning of the engineering solutions. The quantitative description of a hydrogen distribution network was therefore the main objective of this work. Based on recent literature, own data collection and calculations, we analysed the investment, fixed and variable operation costs for transport, storage and distribution of gaseous and liquid hydrogen in cost per unit hydrogen delivered. Besides road transport, we focused on a hydrogen pipeline network for the distribution of hydrogen to supply industry, households and road transport. In order to estimate the costs, a generic concept of a pipeline network was developed and design capacities were assigned. The results show that the distribution of hydrogen add a significant amount to the production costs of hydrogen, which has to be born by customers. The assessment confirmed the economic importance of hydrogen transport compared to the production of hydrogen. Low pressure pipeline supplying households, shops etc. turn out to be the most costly infrastructure element closely followed by the distribution of gaseous hydrogen via road tankers. 40 % to 60 % of cost for hydrogen distribution for the road transport sector can be allocated to the service station. Considering hydrogen production cost of 8 Euro/GJ via steam reforming today (price of natural gas 4.3 Euro/GJ), transport of hydrogen makes up 40 % to 50 % of total hydrogen cost at the customers sites.
The cost of hydrogen infrastructure
2007
7 Seiten, 1 Bild, 9 Tabellen, 13 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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