Quantifying global costs of reliable green hydrogen

Abstract

The current energy crisis has resulted in natural gas prices at an unprecedented level in many parts of the world, with significant consequences for the price of food and fertiliser. In this context, and with the projected reduction in the costs of renewables and electrolysers, green hydrogen is becoming an increasingly attractive option. In this study, we evaluate the current and future costs of green hydrogen, produced on a reliable schedule, so as to be coherent with industrial demand. Here, we take full account of both inter- and intra-annual variability of renewable energy, using 20 years of hourly resolution wind and solar data from 1140 grid points around the world. We observe that simply using average annual capacity factors will result in a significantly under-sized system that will frequently be unable to meet demand. In order to ensure production targets are met, over-capacity of power generation assets and energy storage assets are required to compensate for inter-annual and intra-annual variations in the availability of wind and solar resources, especially in the time periods known as “dunkelflauten”. Whilst costs vary substantially around the world, contemporary costs of reliable green hydrogen are estimated to be, on average, 18–22 USD per kg_H2 with a minimum of 5 USD per kg_H2, depending on the ability to monetise “surplus” or “excess” renewable energy. The primary cost driver is renewable energy capacity, with electrolysers and energy storage costs exerting a second-order effect. With cost reduction, future costs are anticipated to be, on average, 8–10 USD per kg_H2 with a minimum of 3 USD per kg_H2, again as a function of the ability to monetise otherwise curtailed power. Another key factor in future costs is found to be hurdle rates for capital investments. Finally, we observe that continued cost reduction of renewable power is key to reducing overall system costs of green hydrogen production.