Issue 17, 2024

Sailing towards sustainability: offshore wind's green hydrogen potential for decarbonization in coastal USA

Abstract

In the pursuit of achieving net-zero emissions to combat climate change, green hydrogen is expected to be an important decarbonization vector for hard-to-abate sectors. Scaling up green hydrogen production necessitates significant resources such as renewable energy and water, presenting an opportunity for a synergistic integration with offshore wind—a largely untapped energy source with abundant potential and declining costs. In this study, we employ a systematic assessment, utilizing an optimization framework and life cycle assessment, to evaluate the economic and environmental implications of green hydrogen production offshore. We examine the two delivery pathways of direct hydrogen transport – liquefied hydrogen and compressed gaseous hydrogen for 30 coastal states in the United States and further extend the analysis to the regional level, conceptualizing offshore hydrogen hubs. Our findings reveal that under optimistic scenarios of hydrogen uptake, 75% of the nation's serviceable consumption potential of hydrogen can be fulfilled through the deployment of 0.96 TW of offshore wind capacity. This leads to a significant increase in the utilization of offshore wind resources from 1% at present to over 22% of its technical resource potential. Our assessment predicts a delivered cost range of $2.50–$7.00 per kg H2 and life cycle greenhouse gas emissions below the 4 kg CO2e per kg H2 benchmark at the coast for hydrogen produced offshore. These estimates are robust over a large range of demand scenarios. Furthermore, we delve into the factors that lead to the spatial differentiation in these metrics and discuss key policy support measures to bolster the growth potential of these nascent sectors.

Graphical abstract: Sailing towards sustainability: offshore wind's green hydrogen potential for decarbonization in coastal USA

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Analysis
Submitted
02 Apr 2024
Accepted
16 May 2024
First published
17 May 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Energy Environ. Sci., 2024,17, 6138-6156

Sailing towards sustainability: offshore wind's green hydrogen potential for decarbonization in coastal USA

R. K. Balaji and F. You, Energy Environ. Sci., 2024, 17, 6138 DOI: 10.1039/D4EE01460J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements