Power-to-Ships: Future electricity and hydrogen demands for shipping on the Atlantic coast of Europe in 2050

Abstract

The Atlantic coast of Europe has very high demand for maritime transport, with important commercial ports and tourist areas that emit significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. In an effort to address this, the impact of electric and H2 ships for freight and passenger transport along the Atlantic coast on the European energy system in 2050 is analyzed. An optimized energy supply model is applied, which envisions a cost-optimal infrastructure with 100% renewable energy across all of Europe, employing hydrogen as an energy vector. To achieve this target, a minimization of the total annual costs to supply electricity and hydrogen demands is carried out. The obtained results indicate that Ireland will play a key role as a hydrogen supplier as ship demand rises, increasing onshore and electrolyzer capacities, mainly due to comparable low-cost renewable electricity production. The preferred supply routes for Irish hydrogen will be pipelines through the United Kingdom and France to export energy to continental Europe. An increase in salt cavern storage capacity in the United Kingdom, central Europe and Spain is observed. H2 and electricity are shown to be essential for the deployment of more sustainable maritime transport and related activities on the European Atlantic coast.