Techno-economic feasibility of fleets of far offshore hydrogen-producing wind energy converters

Innovative solutions need to be developed for harvesting wind energy far offshore. They necessarily involve on-board energy storage because grid-connection would be prohibitively expensive. Hydrogen is one of the most promising solutions. However, it is well-known that it is challenging to store and transport hydrogen which may have a critical impact on the delivered hydrogen cost. In this paper, it is shown that there are vast areas far offshore where wind power is both characterized by high winds and limited seasonal variations. Capturing a fraction of this energy could provide enough energy to cover the forecast global energy demand for 2050. Thus, scenarios are proposed for the exploitation of this resource by fleets of hydrogen producing wind energy converters sailing autonomously. The scenarios include transportation and distribution of the produced hydrogen. The delivered hydrogen cost is estimated for the various scenarios in the short term and in the longer term. Cost estimates are derived using technical and economic data available in the literature and assumptions for the cost of electricity available on-board the wind energy converters. In the shorter term, delivered cost estimates are in the range 7.1-9.4 (sic)/kg depending on the scenario and the delivery distance. They are based on the assumption of on-board electricity cost at 0.08(sic)/kWh. In the longer term, assuming an on-board electricity cost at 0.04(sic).kWh, the cost estimates could reduce to 3.5 to 5.7 (sic)/kg which would make the hydrogen competitive on several hydrogen markets without any support mechanism. For the hydrogen to be competitive on all hydrogen markets including the ones with the highest GHG emissions, a carbon tax of approximately 200 (sic)/kg would be required. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.