True Cost of Solar Hydrogen

Abstract

Green hydrogen will be an essential part of the future 100% sustainable energy and industry system. Up to one‐third of the required solar and wind electricity would eventually be used for water electrolysis to produce hydrogen, increasing the cumulative electrolyzer capacity to about 17 TWel by 2050. The key method applied in this research is a learning curve approach for the key technologies, i.e., solar photovoltaics (PV) and water electrolyzers, and levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH). Sensitivities for the hydrogen demand and various input parameters are considered. Electrolyzer capital expenditure (CAPEX) for a large utility‐scale system is expected to decrease from the current 400 €/kWel to 240 €/kWel by 2030 and to 80 €/kWel by 2050. With the continuing solar PV cost decrease, this will lead to an LCOH decrease from the current 31–81 €/MWhH2,LHV (1.0–2.7 €/kgH2) to 20–54 €/MWhH2,LHV (0.7–1.8 €/kgH2) by 2030 and 10–27 €/MWhH2,LHV (0.3–0.9 €/kgH2) by 2050, depending on the location. The share of PV electricity cost in the LCOH will increase from the current 63% to 74% by 2050.

Comment on Seibert, M.K.; Rees, W.E. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition. Energies 2021, 14, 4508

“…Global-local analyses for hybrid PV-wind based green Hydrogen indicates huge and lowcost upcoming Hydrogen potential all over the world [85]. Latest cost-optimized green Hydrogen for large utility-scale applications indicates that there is cost parity of green Hydrogen and SMR H 2 for the best solar resource regions and broad cost parity is expected worldwide by 2030 [86]. Furthermore, electrolyzer cost competitiveness is largely limited by policy obstacles that prevent electrolyzer participation in the wholesale electricity market [87].…”

“…Section 3.1.12, "The Liquid Fuels Question" claims that "it is highly unlikely that synthetic liquid fuel substitutes for FFs [fossil fuels] can be produced sustainably in any more than small quantities for niche applications". Vast literature has been published in recent years on e-fuels and e-chemicals, such as green Hydrogen [85,86,163], e-Methane [164,165], Fischer-Tropsch fuels [166,167], e-Ammonia [168,169] and e-Methanol [170,171], all showing that electricity-based fuels are in reach. In a global energy system transition analysis reaching 100% RE in 2050 [46], with 90% electricity share in primary energy (mainly PV, wind and some hydropower) and strong growth in energy service demands, it has been shown that the total energy system cost can be kept at present levels, while the overall energy system efficiency can be increased by a factor of two [46], mainly due to the phase-out of combustion processes which can be substituted by direct electricity-based processes.…”

How Much Technological Progress is Needed to Make Solar Hydrogen Cost‐Competitive?

“…In the literature, various techno‐economic studies of hydrogen production from solar energy can be found. [ 6–12 ] Broadly speaking, they can be classified into three categories: 1.Modelling of state‐of‐the‐art technologies to obtain an estimate for the current LCOH 2 [ 6,11 ] …”

“…In the literature, various techno-economic studies of hydrogen production from solar energy can be found. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Broadly speaking, they can be classified into three categories:…”

“…Modelling of hypothetical future technologies to obtain an estimate for a potential future LCOH 2 [13,14] 3. Learning curve analysis based on learning rates to model the decrease of LCOH 2 over time [9,10] Modelling of state-of-the-art or potential future technologies provides valuable single-point cost estimates and also reveals the impact of individual parameters through sensitivity analysis. However, they do not capture the trajectory of technological progress.…”