Publications

The multi-generation systems with simultaneous production of power by renewable energy in addition to polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzer and fuel cell (PEMFC-PEMEC) energy storage have become more and more popular over the past few years. The fresh water provision for PEMECs in such systems is taken into account as one of the main challenges for them where conventional desalination technologies such as reverse osmosis (RO) and mechanical vapor compression (MVC) impose high electricity consumption and costs. Taking this point into consideration as a novelty solar still (ST) desalination is applied as an alternative to RO and MVC for better techno-economic justifiability. The comparison made for a residential building complex in Hawaii in the US as the case study demonstrated much higher technical and economic benefits when using ST compared with both MVC and RO. The photovoltaic (PV) installed capacity decreased by 11.6 and 7.3 kW compared with MVC and RO while the size of the electrolyzer declined by 9.44 and 6.13% and the hydrogen storage tank became 522.1 and 319.3 m3 smaller respectively. Thanks to the considerable drop in the purchase price of components the payback period (PBP) dropped by 3.109 years compared with MVC and 2.801 years compared with RO which is significant. Moreover the conducted parametric study implied the high technical and economic viability of the system with ST for a wide range of building loads including high values.

Purpose: The Training section of the Education and Training module of the FCHO offers a repository of training available in Europe. In addition to the training programmes Educational materials which are publicly accessible online are also available to access on the FCHO. https://www.fchobservatory.eu/observatory/education-and-training Scope: The training courses are displayed by location within a map and users can explore the data by selecting the type of training of interest. Two additional filters on the language and the focus of the training are available to refine the search according to user needs. Users of the online tool can be students professionals and individuals wishing to learn and be trained on FCH. To complement this mapping a repository of online resources is accessible on the FCHO. Users may retrieve reliable materials available for self-learning. Key Findings: Master programmes and professional training courses were the most mapped categories. There is a prevalence of training courses offered by Western European countries in the mapping. The majority of the training courses mapped are targeted at technicians engineers and doctorate. For Bachelor and Master programmes FCH is more often an element integrated in a programme than its main focus. “Hydrogen Production” and “Hydrogen end-uses: transports” were the most selected focus of courses among the 11 categories proposed. “Regulations Codes and Standards” was the least selected focus with only one training out of five tackling these aspects. Professional training is more often focusing on end-uses and safety than Master programmes. Master programmes put a strong emphasis on “Basic electrochemistry” “Hydrogen production”. European projects are the main source for publicly accessible materials to learn on FCH. Most of the materials listed are available in English. “Hydrogen End-Uses” is the focus category the most common in the materials listed.

This work investigates how to balance the electricity supply and demand in a carbon-neutral northern Europe. Applying a cost-minimizing electricity system model including options to invest in eleven different flexibility measures and cost-efficient combinations of strategies to manage variations were identified. The results of the model were post-processed using a novel method to map the net load before and after flexibility measures were applied to reveal the contribution of each flexibility measure. The net load was mapped in the space spanned by the amplitude duration and number of occurrences. The mapping shows that depending on cost structure flexibility measures contribute to reduce the net load in three different ways; (1) by reducing variations with a long duration but low amplitude (2) by reducing variations with a high amplitude but short duration and low occurrence or (3) by reducing variations with a high amplitude short duration and high occurrence. It was found that cost-efficient variation management was achieved by combining wind and solar power and by combining strategies (1–3) to manage the variations. The cost-efficient combination of strategies depends on electricity system context where electricity trade flexible hydrogen and heat production (1) manage the majority of the variations in regions with good conditions for wind power while stationary batteries (3) were the main contributors in regions with good conditions for solar power.

In this episode Steffan Eldred Hydrogen Knowledge Transfer Manager and Debra Jones Chemistry Knowledge Transfer Manager from Innovate UK KTN talk about hydrogen combustion with special guest Duncan Engeham European Research and Development Director at Cummins Inc.

The podcast can be found on their website.

All diesel-only trains in the UK will be removed from services by 2040. High volumetric density rapid refuelling ability and sophisticated experience in infrastructure and logistics make ammonia a perfect hydrogen carrying fuel for rail freight which urgently requires an economically viable solution. This study conducted a novel techno-economic study of ammonia-fuelled fuel cell powertrains to be compared with current diesel engine-based system and emerging direct hydrogen-fuelled fuel cell system. The results demonstrate that hydrogen-fuelled Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) and ammonia-fuelled PEMFCs (using an ammonia cracker) are more cost-effective in terms of Levelized Cost of Electricity. The ammonia fuel storage requires 61.5-75 % less space compared to the hydrogen storage. Although the ammonia-fuelled Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) powertrain has the highest electricity generation efficiency (56%) the overall cost requires a major reduction by 70% before it could be considered as an economically viable solution.

Purpose: The policy module of the FCHO presents an overview of EU and national policies across various hydrogen and fuel cell related sectors. It provides a snapshot of the current state of hydrogen legislation and policy. https://www.fchobservatory.eu/observatory/policy-and-rcs/eu-policies https://www.fchobservatory.eu/index.php/observatory/policy-and-rcs/nationalpolicies Scope: While FCHO covers 38 entities around the world due to the unavailability of some data at the time of writing this report covers 34 entities. The report reflects data collected January 2021 – May 2021. Key Findings: Hydrogen policies are relatively commonplace among European countries but with large differences between Member States. EU hydrogen leaders do not lag behind global outliers such as South Korea or Japan.

The European Union is committed to a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as outlined in the Green Deal and Climate Law initiatives. In response to geopolitical events the RePowerEU initiative aims to enhance energy self-sufficiency reduce reliance on Russian natural gas and promote hydrogen utilization. Hydrogen valleys localized ecosystems integrating various hydrogen supply chain elements play a key role in this transition particularly benefiting isolated regions like islands. This manuscript focuses on optimizing a Centralized Green Hydrogen Production Facility (CGHPF) on the island of Crete. A mixed-integer linear programming framework is proposed to optimize the CGHPF considering factors such as land area wind and solar potential costs and efficiency. Additionally an in-depth sensitivity analysis is conducted to explore the impact of key factors on the economic feasibility of hydrogen investments. The findings suggest that hydrogen can be sold in Crete at prices as low as 3.5 EUR/kg. Specifically it was found in the base scenario that selling hydrogen at 3.5 EUR/kg the net profit of the investment could be as high as EUR 6.19 million while the capacity of the solar and wind installation supplying the grid hydrogen facility would be 23.51 MW and 52.97 MW respectively. It is noted that the high profitability is justified by the extraordinary renewable potential of Crete. Finally based on our study a policy recommendation to allow a maximum of 20% direct penetration of renewable sources of green hydrogen facilities into the grid is suggested to encourage and accelerate green hydrogen expansion.

The European Commission has identified hydrogen as a key part of its decarbonisation strategy. The 2022 REPowerEU Strategy set a target of 20MT consumption of renewable hydrogen by 2030. The Commission is keen to promote a single European market in hydrogen similar to the current one for natural gas. To this end it has published proposals on the regulation of  future European hydrogen infrastructure (pipelines storage facilities and import terminals). The European Council (representing Member States) and the European Parliament are finalising their amendments to the Commission proposals prior to ’trilogue’ negotiations and final agreement later this year. The paper ‘The EU Hydrogen and Gas Decarbonisation Package: help or hindrance for the development of a European hydrogen market?’ examines the European Commission proposals and their suitability for a developing  hydrogen market.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set decarbonisation goals for the shipping industry. As a result shipowners and operators are preparing to use low- or zero-carbon alternative fuels. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emission performances are fundamental for choosing suitable marine fuels. However the current regulations adopt tank-to-wake (TTW) emission assessment methods that could misrepresent the total climate impacts of fuels. To better understand the well-to-wake (WTW) GHG emission performances this work applied the life cycle assessment (LCA) method to a very large crude carrier (VLCC) sailing between the Middle East and China to investigate the emissions. The life cycle GHG emission impacts of using alternative fuels including liquified natural gas (LNG) methanol and ammonia were evaluated and compared with using marine gas oil (MGO). The bunkering site of the VLCC was in Zhoushan port China. The MGO and LNG were imported from overseas while methanol and ammonia were produced in China. Four production pathways for methanol and three production pathways for ammonia were examined. The results showed that compared with MGO using fossil energy-based methanol and ammonia has no positive effect in terms of annual WTW GHG emissions. The emission reduction effects of fuels ranking from highest to lowest were full solar and battery-based methanol full solar and battery-based ammonia and LNG. Because marine ammonia-fuelled engines have not been commercialised laboratory data were used to evaluate the nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. The GHG emission reduction potential of ammonia can be exploited more effectively if the N2O emitted from engines is captured and disposed of through after-treatment technologies. This paper discussed three scenarios of N2O emission abatement ratios of 30% 50% and 90%. The resulting emission reduction effects showed that using full solar and battery-based ammonia with 90% N2O abatement performs better than using full solar and battery-based methanol. The main innovation of this work is realising the LCA GHG emission assessment for a deep-sea ship.

The quality of the hydrogen delivered by refuelling stations is critical for end-users and society. The purity of the hydrogen dispensed at hydrogen refuelling points should comply with the technical specifications included in the ISO 14687:2019 and EN 17124:2022 standards. Once laboratories have set up methods they need to verify their performances for example through participation in interlaboratory comparisons. Due to the challenge associated with the production of stable reference materials and transport of these which are produced in hydrogen at high pressure (>10 bar) interlaboratory comparisons have been organized in different steps with increasing extent. This study describes an inter-laboratory comparison exercise for hydrogen fuel involving a large number of participants (13 laboratories) completed in less than a year and included eight key contaminants of hydrogen fuel at level close to the ISO14687 threshold. These compounds were selected based on their high probability of occurrence or because they have been found in hydrogen fuel samples. For the results of the intercomparison it appeared that fully complying with ISO 21087:2019 is still challenging for many participants and highlighted the importance of organising these types of exercises. Many laboratories performed corrective actions based on their results which in turn significantly improved their performances.