Prospects for Long-Distance Cascaded Liquid—Gaseous Hydrogen Delivery: An Economic and Environmental Assessment

Yaoyao Yu, Lixia Yu (), Xiaoyuan Chen, Zhiying Zhang, Ke Qing and Boyang Shen ()
Additional contact information
Yaoyao Yu: School of Engineering, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610101, China
Lixia Yu: Business School, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610101, China
Xiaoyuan Chen: School of Engineering, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610101, China
Zhiying Zhang: School of Engineering, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610101, China
Ke Qing: School of Engineering, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610101, China
Boyang Shen: Maglev Transportation Engineering R&D Center, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 20, 1-17

Abstract: As an important energy source to achieve carbon neutrality, green hydrogen has always faced the problems of high use cost and unsatisfactory environmental benefits due to its remote production areas. Therefore, a liquid-gaseous cascade green hydrogen delivery scheme is proposed in this article. In this scheme, green hydrogen is liquefied into high-density and low-pressure liquid hydrogen to enable the transport of large quantities of green hydrogen over long distances. After long-distance transport, the liquid hydrogen is stored and then gasified at transfer stations and converted into high-pressure hydrogen for distribution to the nearby hydrogen facilities in cities. In addition, this study conducted a detailed model evaluation of the scheme around the actual case of hydrogen energy demand in Chengdu City in China and compared it with conventional hydrogen delivery methods. The results show that the unit hydrogen cost of the liquid-gaseous cascade green hydrogen delivery scheme is only 51.58 CNY/kgH 2 , and the dynamic payback periods of long- and short-distance transportation stages are 13.61 years and 7.02 years, respectively. In terms of carbon emissions, this scheme only generates indirect carbon emissions of 2.98 kgCO 2 /kgH 2 without using utility electricity. In sum, both the economic and carbon emission analyses demonstrate the advantages of the liquid-gaseous cascade green hydrogen delivery scheme. With further reductions in electricity prices and liquefication costs, this scheme has the potential to provide an economically/environmentally superior solution for future large-scale green hydrogen applications.

Keywords: green hydrogen; hydrogen delivery scheme; liquid hydrogen; dynamic payback period; indirect carbon emissions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/20/8839/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/20/8839/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:20:p:8839-:d:1497229

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().