Evaluation of Alternative Power-to-Chemical Pathways for Renewable Energy Exports

Muhammad Rasool (), Kaveh Khalilpour (), Ahmad Rafiee (), Iftekhar Karimi () and Reinhard Madlener
Additional contact information
Muhammad Rasool: University of Technology Sydney, Australia, https://www.uts.edu.au/
Kaveh Khalilpour: University of Technology Sydney, Australia, https://www.uts.edu.au/
Ahmad Rafiee: Dana Cluster Pty Ltd., Sydney, Australia
Iftekhar Karimi: National University of Singapore, https://www.nus.edu.sg/

No 4/2021, FCN Working Papers from E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN)

Abstract: Over the last five decades, there have been a few phases of interest in the so-called hydrogen economy, stemming from the need for either energy security enhancement or climate change mitigation. None of these phases has been successful in a major market development mainly due to the lack of cost competitiveness and partially due to technology readiness challenges. Nevertheless, a new phase has begun very recently, which despite holding original objectives has a new motivation to be fully green, based on renewable energy. This new movement has already initiated bipartisan cooperation of some energy importing countries and those with abundant renewable energy resources and supporting infrastructure. For example, the abundance of renewable resources and a stable economy of Australia can attract investments in building these green value chains with countries such as Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and those even further distant like in Europe. One key challenge in this context is the diversity of pathways for the (national and international) export of non-electricity renewable energy. This poses another challenge, i.e., the need for an agnostic tool for comparing various supply chain pathways fairly while considering various techno-economic factors such as renewable energy sources, hydrogen production and conversion technologies, transport, and destination markets, along with all associated uncertainties. This paper addresses the above challenge by introducing a probabilistic decision analysis cycle methodology for evaluating various renewable energy supply chain pathways based on the hydrogen vector. The decision support tool is generic and can accommodate any kind of renewable chemical and fuel supply chain option. As a case study, we have investigated eight supply chain options composed of two electrolysers (alkaline and membrane) and four carrier options (compressed hydrogen, liquefied hydrogen, methanol, and ammonia) for export from Australian ports to three destinations in Singapore, Japan, and Germany. The results clearly show the complexity of decision making induced by multiple factors.

Keywords: Hydrogen economy; renewable hydrogen vector; renewable energy utilisation; renewable energy supply chain; decision analysis cycle; expected levelised cost of hydrogen (ELCOH) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O18 O21 O33 P48 Q01 Q35 Q37 Q42 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2021-05, Revised 2023-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.fcn.eonerc.rwth-aachen.de/global/show_ ... p?id=aaaaaaaacaekwhk Full text (application/pdf)

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:ris:fcnwpa:2021_004

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in FCN Working Papers from E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hendrik Schmitz ().