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Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

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Review Article

How the hydrogen production from RES could

change energy and fuel markets: A review of recent
literature

G. Maggio*, A. Nicita, G. Squadrito

Istituto di Tecnologie Avanzate per l'Energia “Nicola Giordano” (CNR-ITAE), Via Salita S. Lucia Sopra Contesse 5,
98126 Messina, Italy

article info abstract

Article history: The goal that the international community has set itself is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
Received 14 February 2019 emissions in the short/medium-term, especially in Europe that committed itself to
Received in revised form reducing GHG emissions to 80e95% below 1990 levels by 2050. Renewable energies play a
12 March 2019 fundamental role in achieving this objective. In this context, the policies of the main
Accepted 17 March 2019 industrialized countries of the world are being oriented towards increasing the shares of
Available online 10 April 2019 electricity produced from renewable energy sources (RES).
In recent years, the production of renewable energy has increased considerably, but
Keywords: given the availability of these sources, there is a mismatch between production and de-
Hydrogen mand. This raises some issues as balancing the electricity grid and, in particular, the use of
Renewable energy sources (RES) surplus energy, as well as the need to strengthen the electricity network.
Hydrogen economy Among the various new solutions that are being evaluated, there are: the accumulation
Energy market in batteries, the use of compressed air energy storage (CAES) and the production of
Fuel market hydrogen that appears to be the most suitable to associate with the water storage (pumped
hydro). Concerning hydrogen, a recent study highlights that the efficiencies of hydrogen
storage technologies are lower compared to advanced lead acid batteries on a DC-to-DC
basis, but “in contrast […] the cost of hydrogen storage is competitive with batteries and could
be competitive with CAES and pumped hydro in locations that are not favourable for these tech-
nologies” (Moliner et al., 2016) [1].
This shows that, once the optimal efficiency rate is reached, the technologies con-
cerning the production of hydrogen from renewable sources will be a viable and compet-
itive solution. But, what will be the impact on the energy and fuel markets? The production
of hydrogen through electrolysis will certainly have an important economic impact,
especially in the transport sector, leading to the creation of a new market and a new supply
chain that will change the physiognomy of the entire energy market.
© 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Maggio).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.03.121
0360-3199/© 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
11372 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 4 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 1 1 3 7 1 e1 1 3 8 4

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11372
Literature selection and classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11373
Hydrogen production from RES: an overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11373
Results and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11375
Hydrogen costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11377
Drivers and obstacles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11379
Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11380
Obstacles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11380
Impacts on the electricity and fuel markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11381
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11382
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11382
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11382

time coincidence of the renewable resources with demands.

Introduction As a consequence, systems for storing energy are becoming
increasingly significant. Among the various solutions that are
Clean energy development is vital to combating climate being evaluated, hydrogen is currently considered to be one of
change and limiting its most devastating effects, but this must the key enabling technologies allowing future large scale and
be achieved while maintaining the security of energy supply long term green storage of renewable power to be combined,
to warrant social and economic development. Renewable for instance, with the well-established pumped hydro storage.
energies play a fundamental role to address all these issues. Hydrogen can be produced from various raw materials by a
For this reason, the policies of the main industrialized coun- number of different process technologies. At present, it is
tries of the world are being oriented towards increasing the mainly produced from fossil fuels: about 96% of the world's
shares of power produced from renewable sources. This has hydrogen production [4]. Steam methane reforming (SMR) is
as a consequence the transformation of the power supply the most widely used route for producing hydrogen from
chain. natural gas. Other thermo-chemical conversion technologies
Nowadays, the power supply is mainly assured by fuels allow hydrogen production through different pathways
and electricity, this last largely generated from fossil fuels. starting from coal, oil, biomass-derived fuels, biomass and
Consequently, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions wastes [5]. However, all these approaches are not GHG-free.
means reducing the use of fossil fuels, also for generating The Power-to-Gas concept, based on water electrolysis
electric power, and increasing electrification. It is not a casu- utilizing electricity derived from renewable energies (wind,
alty that world electricity demand will have increased by 70% solar, geothermal, hydro) is the most environmentally
from 2014 to 2040, according to the International Energy friendly approach. This attractive method for hydrogen gen-
Agency (IEA) forecasts. Moreover, its share in final energy use eration, based on a mature technology, currently accounts for
will rise from 18% to 23% during the same period driven only 4% of the hydrogen production but its large expansion is
mainly by the emerging economies of India, China, Africa, the expected in the next few years: a share of 22% is predicted for
Middle East and South-East Asia [2]. In this framework, 2050 [6].
renewable sources contributed 23% of global electricity supply Indeed, hydrogen is not only a fuel for electric power
in 2014, and this share is expected to increase from 37% to 58% storage but also a raw material for a number of industrial
in 2040 [2]. Within renewable generation, solar and wind processes that up to now represent almost all of the con-
power are easily converted into electricity by photovoltaic sumption of hydrogen. Consequently, our expectation is that
panels and wind mills, while concentrated solar power is the Power-to-Hydrogen route will change some aspects of
under development for its large scale deployment. At the end today's markets of electricity, fuels and goods. In particular, a
of 2016, solar and wind installed capacities (296 and 467 GW, deep change in electricity-fuels markets paradigm could be
respectively) accounted for almost 40% of all renewable foreseen. In crude words, we can say that also today, like in
installed power capacity (about 15% of all power sources). the second half of previous century, fossil fuel prices deter-
China leads the market for solar and wind with an installed mine the electricity price, because large part of electric power
capacity of 226 GW, 30% of the world total [3]. is currently produced by fossil fuels. While, in a world with
A key issue to be faced is that electricity generation from 100% electricity from renewables the electricity price will be
renewables is heavily weather-dependent and this entails independent of oil price and it can also strongly influence the
fluctuations causing instability of power systems. Further- price of fuels, reversing the current paradigm.
more, energy security is generally ensured when supply and In this paper, we reported the results of the first step of a
demand are balanced at all times, instead there is a limited study aimed at a deep understanding of the socio-economic
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impacts arising from the introduction of RES-based hydrogen. possible: 24 studies belong to two different categories. Among
In particular, we reviewed the recent literature concerning the categories, “Technical scenarios” is the one with the
hydrogen production and deployment, focusing our attention highest number of selected publications (27), followed by
on the role attributed to Power-to-Hydrogen concept, and “Forecasts” (20) and “Backcasts & Pathways” (16).
carrying out a comparative analysis with the objective of We found out that the majority of the studies of our in-
elucidating the main economic, social and environmental terest, regarding e directly or indirectly e the production of
aspects which should guide the future market of the so-called hydrogen from renewables, have been published between
“hydrogen economy”. 2013 and 2017. This explains the difference in number of
selected papers reported in Tables 2a and 2b. Since we think
that the selected studies are representative of the whole
Literature selection and classification examined literature, we can conclude that this could be
related to the fact that during those years the renewable
The analysis is focused on socio-technical-economic aspects. sources had increased the share in the energy power.
To identify the studies, we have mainly used the Scopus
database, but we have also considered some pertinent studies
mentioned in the references of the selected publications. The Hydrogen production from RES: an overview
search in Scopus has been carried out by typing some specific
words in the field “Article title, Abstract, Keywords”, i.e. Hydrogen has a plurality of applications and can be produced
“hydrogen” AND “forecast (ing)”; “foresight”; “scenario”; from a variety of feedstocks or recovered from some industrial
“vision”; “backcast (ing)”; “pathway”; “roadmap”; “routemap”. processes (like chlorine-soda). The lower polluting system is
In such a way, about 300 documents in the period production of hydrogen from water using electrolysis process
2008e2017 have been preliminarily identified, from which we generating high purity hydrogen. But this process needs
have selected 66 papers published in the same timeframe. electric power, consequently electrolysis is really green only if
These publications have been classified into six categories, the electric power comes from RES, moreover it results
described in Table 1: forecasts, exploratory scenarios, tech- expensive. Consequently, electrolysis-hydrogen is used when
nical scenarios, visions, backcasts & pathways, roadmaps. In high purity hydrogen is requested, or when there is large
doing so, we adopted the method proposed by McDowall and availability of electric power at very low cost, better if close to
Eames and used the same criteria to classify each study [7,8]. zero, like in the case of surplus of electric production. For this
This classification allowed us to compare the studies reason, since early deployment of RES, hydrogen via elec-
starting from groups having similar and homogeneous fea- trolysis was considered an interesting energy storage method,
tures. This also enables us to better evidence the time evolu- due to the fluctuating nature of the renewables.
tion of the hydrogen scenarios. Although some authors, like Sørensen [9], demonstrated
Tables 2a and 2b list the selected studies categorized for that electric grid with high RES penetration can be balanced if
the five-year periods 2008e2012 and 2013e2017, respectively. RES generation plants are distributed on a sufficiently wide
In some cases, the classification in a single category was not area, for long time the discussion was centred on electricity-

Table 1 e Description of the six categories used to classify the examined studiesa.
Category Description
Forecasts Forecasts are characterised by the use of quantitative methods to predict futures based on
current trends or surveys of expert opinion.
Exploratory scenarios Exploratory scenarios seek to inform policy-making by underlying drivers of change, often
drawing upon tacit knowledge and expertise, to build internally consistent storylines
describing a number of possible futures. They do not specify a predetermined desirable future.
Technical scenarios Technical scenarios explore different possible future technological systems, and assess the
implications of these against a range of criteria (emissions, costs, technical feasibility, etc.).
These studies are much more specific about the systems envisaged for the future and how
these might work in technological terms.
Visions Vision studies present, often rather utopian, narrative descriptions of a future hydrogen
economy. They aim to show that a hydrogen economy is both plausible and desirable. These
studies tend to be rhetorical rather than analytical. Their role is not to analyse or predict the
future; the strength of the approach is that they expand the possibilities considered, and
create a shared picture of what the future could be.
Backcasts & Pathways These studies all start with the assumption that some form of hydrogen economy is desirable,
and investigate possible paths by which the transition to that hydrogen future e assumed as a
predetermined end-point e might be attained.
Roadmaps Roadmaps assume the desirability of a technology, often defining a (usually vague) vision, and
outlining a series of steps to get there.
Building a roadmap usually involves groups of stakeholders identifying the drivers, barriers,
targets, and wider threats and opportunities.
a
Based on the paper of McDowall & Eames, 2006 [7].
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Table 2a e Enumeration and classification of the selected studies, for the period 2008e2012.
# Studya STUDY CLASSIFICATION
Forecasts Exploratory scenarios Technical scenarios Visions Backcasts & Pathways Roadmaps
1 Contaldi et al. [38] * *
2 Seymour et al. [69] * *
3 Sørensen [9] * *
4 Stevens et al. [39] * *
5 Wang et al. [70] * *
6 Ball & Wietschel [52] *
7 Contreras et al. [20] *
8 Lee J.eY. et al. [21] * *
9 Martin & Grasman [40] *
10 Shayegan et al. [41] *
11 Barton & Gammon [17] * *
12 Chernyavs'ka & Gullı̀ [23] * *
13 Kazim [71] *
14 Lior [72] * *
15 Ma et al. [68] *
16 van Bree et al. [51] *
17 Lee J.eY. et al. [22] * *
18 Lee S.K. et al. [73] *
19 Lee S.K. et al. [74] *
20 Lior [75] * *
21 Parissis et al. [24] *
22 McDowall [8] *
Subtotal 2008e12: 8 3 7 3 9 3
a
References are listed by year, then alphabetically by author.

hydrogen-electricity cycle, usually called Power-to-Power, for will cover not only electric power demand, but also other de-
electricity storage and on electricity-to-(hydrogen)fuel for mands like heat and fuel. By utilizing a Power-to-Gas pathway,
application in transportation aimed just at a damping of the electrolysis could also be used to deliver hydrogen at low cost
electric grid unbalancing. through the existing natural gas pipeline network, by blending
The debate is still open, in fact, as remarked by Dickinson it with natural gas to create hydrogen enriched natural gas
et al. [10], hydrogen produced via electrolysis e referred as (HENG) which can be used in combined heat and power (CHP)
Power-to-Hydrogen (P2H) e can be employed for a variety of systems (cogeneration). Another Power-to-Gas process is to
end-uses, which include a range of high value products and transform electricity, through electrolysis and subsequent
services, mentioned as Hydrogen-to-X (H2X). The authors methanation, into synthetic methane which can then be
highlight the potential role of hydrogen as a key factor to- stored or injected into the gas grid (see also [15,17]). Hydrogen
wards a low-carbon economy for decarbonisation of the produced from electrolysis can be distributed at the refuelling
transport, industry and energy sectors (power, gas and heat- stations as a clean fuel (Power-to-Fuel) for fuel cell electric ve-
ing/cooling). hicles (FCEVs), or used as a chemical feedstock in the industry
A representation of the envisaged pathways of the (Power-to-Feedstock).
hydrogen produced by electrolysis is shown in Fig. 1. Appli- In practice, Power-to-Fuel e considered in all the analyses
cations like Power-to-Power (P2P) e i.e., production of hydrogen as the main reference market for hydrogen e couples two
by electrolysis, storage and reconversion of hydrogen into markets which today are separated, that is the transport and
clean electricity (re-electrification), by fuel cells or gas tur- the power generation sectors (see e.g. Ref. [18]).
bines e are promising for off-grid applications (e.g. remote On the other hand, based on the Power-to-Feedstock
communities and back-up power), but not yet competitive for approach, hydrogen would act as a link between the energy
grid-connected ones (see also [11]). This is due to the low market and the raw materials (commodities) market. In this
overall round-trip efficiency of the system: 30e40%, today; regard, Al-Subaie et al. [14] indicated that the hydrogen can be
50% if more efficient technologies are developed. In this case, consumed instantaneously by the oil refining and chemical
the underground storage in salt caverns, aquifers and industries without the necessity for increasing FCEV market
depleted oil and gas fields is mentioned as the most economic penetration. Besides, due to their fast response times (in the
way of storing large volumes of hydrogen [11e15]. Lu et al. [16] order of seconds), hydrogen electrolysers can be used as Fre-
proposed to combine water electrolysis with hydropower quency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) to enhance the grid
station in order to produce hydrogen conveniently and reduce stability [10]. This aspect has also been evidenced by Grueger
the negative impact of climate forecasts uncertainty. et al. [19] that proposed to combine wind turbines with fuel
According to Sørensen [9], in a primary energy mix sce- cells (FCs) and electrolysers (ELYs) to provide secondary con-
nario dominated by renewables it is envisaged that hydrogen trol reserve (SCR) in Germany.
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Table 2b e Enumeration and classification of the selected studies, for the period 2013e2017.
# Studya STUDY CLASSIFICATION
Forecasts Exploratory Technical Visions Backcasts & Roadmaps
scenarios scenarios Pathways
1 Fernandes et al. [57] *
2 Gahleitner [76] *
3 Hwang [46] *
4 Le Duigou et al. [12] * *
5 Lee D.H [77]. * *
6 Park [78] *
7 Winkler-Goldstein & Rastetter [28] * *
8 Andreasen & Sovacool [32] *
9 Jacobson et al. [37] *
10 Jentsch et al. [79] *
11 Le Duigou & Smatti [50] * *
12 Thengane et al. [80] *
13 Zini & Dalla Rosa [11] *
14 Ball & Weeda [29] *
15 Dorda & Nikowitz [81] * *
16 Lu et al. [16] *
17 Ludwig et al. [82] *
18 Marchenko & Solomin [83] *
19 Shafiei et al. [42] * *
20 Zhang X. et al. [54] *
21 Baltputnis et al. [13] *
22 Cantuarias-Villessuzanne et al. [45] *
23 Eichman et al. [67] *
24 Moliner et al. [1] *
25 Parra & Patel [55] *
26 Rivarolo et al. [66] *
27 Sgobbi et al. [34] *
28 Walker et al. [35] *
29 Walker et al. [36] *
30 Zhang Y. et al. [84] *
31 Alanne & Cao [49] * *
32 Al-Subaie et al. [14] *
33 Chapman et al. [64] * *
34 Dickinson et al. [10] * *
35 Gis et al. [56] * *
36 Grueger et al. [19] *
37 Huss [30] * *
38 Hydrogen Council [31] *
39 Hydrogen Council [33] *
40 Kopp et al. [53] *
41 Maroufmashat & Fowler [15] *
42 Ognissanto et al. [43] * *
43 Viesi et al. [48] * *
44 Zhang X. et al. [85] *
Subtotal 2013e17: 12 9 20 4 7 5
TOTAL 20 12 27 7 16 8
a
See note (a) to Table 2a.

trends or structure of the existing market. The role of hydrogen

Results and discussion in transportation is largely discussed, because it is seen as a
new fuel for reducing pollution. But, almost all the papers
As already mentioned, to better understand the trend of the considering just the economic aspects come to the conclusion
hydrogen economy, we have divided the selected studies that the SMR is the lower cost solution for hydrogen produc-
published between 2008 and 2017 into two five-year periods: tion for a number of decades; in these cases, MARKAL is largely
the first goes from 2008 to 2012 (Table 2a) and the second from used for estimating production and/or delivery costs (see e.g.
2013 to 2017 (Table 2b). Ref. [20]). While a number of authors strongly support the
In the first period, the papers are mainly focused on hydrogen introduction and deployment by evaluating the
possible evolution of hydrogen market, with a strong link to economic advantage of the social benefits, i.e. reduced pollu-
transportation and not considering substantial changes in the tion and increased safety of energy supply [21e24].
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Fig. 1 e Schematic of the mentioned Power-to-X pathways.

Publications of the second period present a change in the scale electricity storage e as well as reserve production ca-
approach. Hydrogen production by electrolysers is more and pacity e also rises.
more considered as a potential solution, in addition to more In addition, after 2013 some countries announced period of
accurate cost determinations due to technology advance- time with RES-electricity production overcoming the national
ments, it is highlighted a change in the role attributed to necessities and, in some days, also negative prices have been
hydrogen as power storage medium, electric grid damping recorded (in Germany, 103 times in 2017), and today the RES-
agent and feedstock for some industrial applications. This electricity production strongly influences the kWh price on
“new” hydrogen role, although presented in some papers of electricity market [26,27].
the previous period, is now clear and can be considered This issue is addressed in most papers, in which it is
claimed. This is also confirmed by the International Energy highlighted the close link between the development of
Agency (IEA) that in early 2016 started the Task 38 of the renewable energies and the use of hydrogen to store the sur-
Hydrogen Implementing Agreement entitled “Power-to- plus of electric power.
Hydrogen and Hydrogen-to-X”. As reported in Ref. [28], the German Federal Government
A possible explanation of this fact can be searched in the expects that renewable in Germany rises from 35% of elec-
share of penetration of RES power in electric grid. According to tricity consumption in 2020 to 80% by 2050, hereupon multi-
the IEA, comparing 2005e2010 to 2011e2016, the renewable billion euro investments in energy storage are expected by
electricity capacity has increased about 106%, from 377 GW to 2020 in order to reach these goals. According to Ref. [29],
778 GW. Greater growth has been established in 2016, as a several TWhs of surplus electricity may occur when the share
result of the rapid expansion of solar photovoltaics (PV) in the of renewables is higher than 30e40% of national electricity
world, especially in China, due to a combination of cost re- demand.
ductions and policy support measures [25]. In fact, during the Many scholars believe that hydrogen is suitable for storing
years 2011e2016, solar PV rises up to 260 GW (224 GW more the fluctuating renewable energy generation and the only one
than the previous six-years). The wind source also rises from capable of storing large amounts of power for long durations
134 GW (2005e2010) to 258 GW (2011e2016). [10,11,13e16].
Furthermore, the IEA envisages that between 2017 and For the German National Organisation for Hydrogen and
2022, the global renewable electricity capacity will expand by Fuel Cell Technology [30], when the share of renewable energy
over 920 GW, an increase of 43%. By 2022, wind and solar consumed in Germany, in the years 2030/2035, will be at
together will represent more than 80% of global renewable around 50%, hydrogen will become increasingly important as
capacity growth. But a key issue is that wind and solar energy an energy storage medium. As estimated by the Hydrogen
are fluctuating and intermittent and have to be balanced for Council [31], the potential of valorisation of otherwise cur-
electric grid stability purposes. Consequently, as the share of tailed renewable energy is considerable. Only in Germany,
renewables in power generation increases, the need for large- taking into consideration a scenario with 90% renewables,
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curtailment of more than 170 TWh/year is envisaged for 2050, MARKAL model is largely used in analysing regional and na-
equivalent to about half the energy needed to fuel the German tional scenarios [20,38].
passenger car fleet with hydrogen. This was already foreseen Stevens et al. [39] proposed a model for optimising an
in a study on the full RES energy for northern countries of electrolyser-based hydrogen refuelling infrastructure in
Europe [9]. Ontario (Canada) region, concluding that hydrogen cost to the
Denmark, where the aim is to reach e within 2020e50% consumer reaches an asymptotic value at about 1000 vehicles,
power production from renewable resources and the com- i.e. not very large scale deployment of H2-fuelled vehicles.
plete penetration of renewables by the year 2050, is the The possibility to use hydrogen, considered as a by-product
country that spends the most on hydrogen and fuel cell of wind farms, presents a low initial infrastructure investment
development worldwide measured against Gross Domestic suitable for supplying fuel to light-duty vehicles in USA [40].
Product (GDP), as highlighted in Ref. [32]. Moreover, this approach would provide a greater size-
Indeed, the Hydrogen Council [33] foresees that, by 2030, flexibility (due to the modularity of the wind system) and
250 to 300 TWh of surplus renewable electricity could be redundancy (on-site production of hydrogen allows to reduce
stored in the form of hydrogen for use in other segments. the use and cost of conventional fuel transportation, with a
Consequently, the storage of hydrogen would help to exploit benefit in terms of environmental impact). By using 1.8e3.5%
the production of electricity from renewables without any of the U.S. surface for wind farms, in comparison with 13.7%
disruptions in the grid. of surface needed to substitute gasoline with bio E85 fuel, it
Based on the forecasts made in Ref. [34], using a would be possible to support a majority of the U.S. trans-
JRCeEUeTIMES model to assess the role of hydrogen in a portation fuel demand. Comparison of electrolytic hydrogen
future decarbonised Europe, it comes out the increasingly with that produced by SMR is an usual method for evaluating
important role of electrolysers in using excess electricity. The the examined approaches: e.g., the transition to hydrogen-bus
electricity for electrolysers constitutes, in 2050, in the two in London (UK) was modelled in Ref. [41], life cycle assess-
climate scenarios assumed e current policy initiative (CPI) and ments were performed for evaluating the eco-efficiency of
long-term decarbonisation (CAP) e respectively 23% and 42% hydrogen buses [22], or for measuring the environmental ef-
of the electricity stored. In the CAP scenario, it will be 4% of the fects of hydrogen in transportation [23].
total electricity produced in the EU28. A system-dynamics model was employed in Ref. [42] to
In the Canadian province of Ontario, where renewable perform energy, economic and environmental comparisons of
energy generation has increased due to heavy investments in hydrogen, biofuel and electric vehicles (Iceland case) demon-
solar and wind farms, the Independent Electricity System strating that hydrogen would be the attractive alternative in
Operator (IESO) found out that, in 2013, almost 18.3 TWh of reducing the import of petroleum products and consumer
surplus energy was exported from Ontario to neighbouring total fuel costs, although this option has the highest cost of
jurisdictions at a low cost [35,36]. It was estimated that, if this vehicle ownership and infrastructure development.
energy was stored, approximately 1,396,000 houses could In Ref. [43] the environmental impact of FCEVs, pure bat-
have been powered for a year, assuming an average monthly tery electric vehicles (BEVs) and ICE cars have been modelled,
household energy consumption of 800 kWh. Starting from compared and forecast to 2050 under various scenarios.
these data, Walker et al. [35] analysed six energy services Alkaline electrolysis resulted to be the cleanest process for
applications for Power-to-Gas. The outcomes came out by hydrogen production (compared to SMR and coal gasification)
their work showed that Power-to-Gas can provide a high level if the electricity employed came from renewable sources,
of support to the energy management regulators for both especially if no road transportation was used for delivering the
ancillary and storage services. fuel to the retail station. But this approach has foreseen high
A roadmap [37] foresees, within 2050, the total conversion costs of installing infrastructures.
of the California's energy system into a clean and sustainable In the following paragraphs, we reported the data taken
one powered by wind, water, and sunlight producing elec- from the reviewed papers, regarding the production of
tricity and electrolytic hydrogen. The hydrogen will be used, hydrogen from renewable focusing on the following issues:
mainly, for the transportation to power the fuel cell vehicles production costs and supply prices; drivers and obstacles;
(FCVs). impacts on the electricity and fuel markets.
Hydrogen for transportation is a recurring topic that binds
the whole period 2008e2017 and the related issues are directly Hydrogen costs
or indirectly considered or argued in all the selected literature.
Two main issues are worldwide addressed: the hydrogen fuel Table 3 reports the production cost of hydrogen from elec-
cell development and the hydrogen refuelling station trolysis extracted from the selected literature, compared with
network. Over time, many attempts to plan distribution net- costs associated to steam methane reforming (SMR) or other
works and to evaluate the supply hydrogen costs have been processes. In some cases, the hydrogen supply prices
made. (including storage and delivery costs) are also indicated. To
Design and operation of the supply network were better compare these costs, we converted all the values to unit
attempted by different modelling approaches, usually on city mass of hydrogen (cost per kg).
or regional level. The estimation of hydrogen costs is a challenging mission,
For hydrogen as a fuel for transportation the issue of costs due to the number of involved variables having uncertain
is the dominant question, consequently the mentioned value and to the assumptions that must be made.
 11378
Table 3 e Comparison of hydrogen costs (per kg) derived from the selected studiesa.
Production cost Supply cost Notes Reference
4.5 $ Electrolyser efficiency 80%. [39]
Electricity price 0.07 $/kWh.

10.9 $ (from wind) Grid-mix refers to the Korean electricity mix. [21]
9.1 $ (from grid-mix)
9.4 $ (SMR)
4.7 $ (from wind, 2015) No taxes on hydrogen.
3.3 $ (from grid-mix, 2015)

i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 4 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 1 1 3 7 1 e1 1 3 8 4
2.9 $ (SMR, 2015)

6.7 V (2015) On-site production. [41]

5.0 V (SMR, 2015) Costs in £ (see note below).

4.8e8.3 $ (untaxed) [46]

4.4e7.2 $ (bioethanol reforming)
3.3e4.3 $ (SMR)

4-11 V (from wind grid-connected) Alkaline electrolysis. [12]

9-20 V (from wind isolated) The lowest cost (4.0 V/kg) is for a 2000 barrels per day
BtL station grid connected.

10 V (see note) The higher costs refer to electrolyser utilization [29]

2-6 V (see note) <1000 h/yr (3000e4000 h/yr for the lower)

1.1 $ (2025?) Cost of compression, storage and dispensing: 2.47 $/kg Electrolysis distributed production, and Iceland [42]
industrial electricity tariff.

8.0 V (2015) Costs refer to EU-28 [45]

2.9 V (SMR, 2015)
3.6 V (SMR þ CCS, 2015)
4.0 V (SMR on-site, 2015)
6.0 V (SMR with biogas, 2015)
4.4 V (2055)
3.3 V (SMR, 2055)
4.1 V (SMR þ CCS, 2055)
3.0 V (SMR on-site, 2055)
4.0 V (SMR with biogas, 2055)

10 V (2015) [49]
6-8 V (future)

5-10 V (untaxed) [56]

2-3 V 9.5 V (untaxed) The lower production cost is obtained by combining [19]
1.1 V (see note) FC and electrolyser, and participating to SCRb market

4.9e11.3 V (2020) On-site electrolysis from on-site produced RES [48]

4.6e11.6 V (2030)
5.1e13.4 V (2050)
a
All costs refer to hydrogen produced by electrolysis, unless otherwise indicated. The following conversions have been used: 1 gasoline gallon equivalent ¼ 1 kg H2, 1 L gasoline equivalent ¼ 0.276 kg
H2, 1 £ (2009) ¼ 1.11 V.
b
SCR ¼ Secondary Control Reserve. Primary control reserve (PCR) is activated automatically as soon as deviations in the grid frequency occur (response time 5e10 s). If the activation of PCR is not
sufficient to balance the frequency deviation, grid operators activate secondary (10 se15 min) and tertiary (10e30 min) control reserve consecutively.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 4 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 1 1 3 7 1 e1 1 3 8 4 11379

The expectation was to see time progressive improvement wind system is connected to the grid the estimated cost (4
of the estimations and a concomitant reduction of the ex- V/kg) is quite competitive with hydrogen production by SMR
pected hydrogen costs e both production and supply costs e (ca. 1.5e2.3 V/kg).
due to the increase in knowledge, in database availability and Hwang [46] conducted a comprehensive life-cycle anal-
a progressive optimisation of hydrogen technologies. For ysis for various fuel/vehicles systems. Results showed that
instance, Schmidt et al. [44] in an elicitation study evidenced FCEVs have a fuel economy better than gasoline vehicles,
that experts forecast a significant reduction of the (capital) resulting in lower operating cost (per mile). However,
cost of water electrolysis systems (AEC, PEMEC and SOEC), and hydrogen from SMR is likely to be the primary mode of pro-
an extension of their lifetime by 2020 and further by 2030, duction for the near-term penetration of FCEVs. About the
which e in our opinion e should reflect in a decrease of the supply costs, hydrogen from electrolysis or bio-ethanol
hydrogen cost. reforming costs ca. 5e8 $/kg, while hydrogen from natural
We observed that some estimations fail because using gas reforming is already competitive with gasoline: in fact,
some old data, with respect to the publication year. Moreover, its cost is close to the hydrogen threshold cost (2e4 $/kg), i.e.
it can be evidenced that the reported costs of hydrogen do not the DOE target value at which hydrogen becomes competi-
changed significantly along time, as shown in Table 3. This tive with gasoline [47].
was attributed to the large variability of the assumptions According to Ref. [29], the hydrogen production costs
made by the authors and to the variety of the data sources, depend on the electrolyser utilization: based on model cal-
moreover currency conversion can introduce misalignment. culations, the optimum use is in the order of 3000 to 6000 h/
Consequently, for electrolysis the estimated production year. At less than 1000 h/yr hydrogen costs are prohibitively
costs spans in a very wide range, from about 2 V/kg to 20 V/kg, high, in the order of at least 10 V/kg, while in the range
depending on the production pathway. In particular, higher 3000e4000 h/yr hydrogen costs start levelling off in a range of
costs are foreseen for hydrogen produced on-site (small-scale) 2e6 V/kg.
rather than centralized (large-scale) production using elec- Viesi et al. [48], considering four operating modes, found
tricity from the grid. These costs are higher than those asso- out that the lowest cost is granted by on-site H2 production
ciated to SMR (usually, <3 V/kg), but estimated future costs for from on-site produced renewable electricity. They foresee
electrolysis should be comparable to SMR (see Ref. [45]). that the cost of production and transport of hydrogen is be-
While Stevens et al. [39], modelling the optimisation of a tween 4.9 and 11.3 V/kg in 2020, 4.6 and 11.6 V/kg in 2030, 5.1
hydrogen refuelling infrastructure for Ontario region, esti- and 13.4 V/kg in 2050. The slightly increasing cost of hydrogen
mated a user (supply) cost of 4.5 $/kg just relating it to the after 2030 is due to the increasing cost of primary energy
number of vehicles (>1000), with the simple assumptions of sources (electricity and gas), that the authors had supposed.
80% electrolyser efficiency and 0.07 $/kWh electricity price. While in Finland the estimated price of hydrogen fuel, which
They assumed a supply system free from taxes on electric in 2015 was approximately 10 V/kg, is predicted to decrease to
power. 6e8 V/kg [49].
In a study dated 2009 [21], based on the energy mix of South It is interesting to notice that, based on Le Duigou & Smatti
Korea, a strong reduction of costs of hydrogen produced on- [50], a (medium sized) FCEV, with a fuel cell cost of 40 V/kW,
site, independently of the production technology, has been will be competitive with a similar ICE car e considering a
estimated by 2015, forecasting that SMR (2.9 $/kg) would still gasoline cost of 1.75 V/l e if the supply hydrogen cost is ca. 7
be the lower cost technological approach. This result is in V/kg. While, in the case of FC-RE electric car (i.e., fuel cell as a
agreement with that derived in Ref. [45]. Shayegan et al. [41] range-extender), the maximum acceptable price of hydrogen
reported for 2015 a supply price of about 7 V/kg for on-site at the pump can be even higher (ca. 10 V/kg).
production by electrolysis (5 V/kg for on-site SMR),
evidencing that for off-site production the costs are higher Drivers and obstacles
and affected by delivery distances.
Hydrogen produced by alkaline electrolysis from wind We inferred, from the selected literature, the obstacles and
energy systems could have a production cost varying from ca. drivers highlighted by authors about the electrolytic-
4 to 20 V/kg, depending strongly on the wind power system hydrogen from RES. The main drivers and obstacles are
configuration (isolated or connected to the grid) [12]. If the summarized in Table 4.

Table 4 e Main drivers and obstacles for the RES-based “hydrogen economy”.
Drivers Obstacles
Favourable policy framework that creates a market High costs of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies
pull
New regulatory frameworks e at national and Lack of subsidies to support market competitive conditions for hydrogen
international level e concerning finance, tax, technologies.
environment, and safety Absence of a common regulatory framework.
Engagement of stakeholders, public and private, to Lack of investments in the hydrogen infrastructure
establish the roadmap
Energy security and reduction of GHG emissions Electricity price
Need of energy storage and electric grid balance Current socio-economic context
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Drivers phases, namely electrolyser manufacturers, utility company

The environmental advantages (e.g. GHG emission reduction) and network operators (amongst others) in order to design
and secure energy supply are the main motivation for and operate flexible P2G plants. Furthermore, the policy
hydrogen introduction. These drivers are mentioned in all the makers have to create new regulatory frameworks for stim-
selected papers, but they cannot be effective without a change ulating the participation of P2G in several markets while they
in the socio-economic mindset, as evidenced in Ref. [51], simultaneously offer complimentary services as well as eco-
where the introduction of FCEVs has been investigated. On nomic and environmental benefits in a more integrated and
this purpose, the increase of hydrogen-fuel demand from resilient energy system. Also the Hydrogen Council [31,33]
transportation is considered one of the main drivers for puts in evidence that some countries, to mitigate the risks of
hydrogen commercialisation, including hydrogen by elec- investments with a long horizon (10e20 years), especially in
trolysis, as claimed in literature [9,39,52]. the early years, have developed some initiatives that involve
Another driving factor for hydrogen by electrolysis is the several stakeholders. In Japan, for instance, the government
depletion of oil reserves which will cause the increase of oil and industrial companies share a long-term roadmap for
prices. Consequently, there will be an increase of the cost of creating the “hydrogen society”. In the mobility sector, in
fuels, including natural gas, and will become preferable to use which it is required a coordinated effort across industries to
oil and methane for other purposes e having a greater added resolve the market mismatch between infrastructure
value e than fuel [21,51]. deployment (stations) and demand for hydrogen (FCEVs),
For Stevens et al. [39] the pivotal factor is the money saving some coalitions are set up involving public institutions and
by customers, and they made a comparison with the gas ve- industries. As in Germany, where an industry coalition
hicles. The researchers who studied the gas fuelled car market together with government planned to invest EUR 350 million
start-up claimed that the need of a well-structured refuelling to build up to 400 refuelling stations for FCEVs by 2023.
system is less and less important for customers with respect Another example is the California Fuel Cell Partnership, which
to an increasing money saving. This matches with results is a collaboration which involves car manufacturers, energy
reported in Refs. [21,45], where a significant money saving companies, fuel cell technology companies and government
over the lifetime of the hydrogen FCEV has been forecast. agencies, to boost and foster the commercialisation of FCEVs
Furthermore, in agreement with [48], from the consumer and hydrogen in California.
point of view, it is important to eliminate or decrease the
taxation in order to foster the competitiveness of the Obstacles
hydrogen carrier. Farther, the financial supports are necessary As regards the transport sector, all the authors highlighted that
by: European Union and national governments, investments the main obstacles are the high cost of fuel cells and the
by local authorities (at regional and municipality level), pri- absence of a refuelling station network, requiring high in-
vate investments. vestment costs. Still recently, several authors [43,45,48,56]
Ball & Weeda [29] indicated some conditions they deem evidenced some critical drawbacks e lack of fuel supply
necessary for electrolysis may become an economically viable infrastructure, vehicle capital and maintenance costs, fuel
route for electricity storage: (i) electricity generation from cost, etc. e hindering the widespread adoption of hydrogen-
intermittent renewables and surplus in the order of tens of based transportation, at least in the near-term: based on the
TWhs over some 3000e4000 h annually; (ii) low electricity majority of the forecasts, hydrogen-fuelled vehicles should be
prices during a significant part of the year; and (iii) favourable cost-competitive with conventional vehicles between 2030 and
and sustained policy framework that also creates a market 2050. The infrastructure is seen as a chicken-and-egg problem
pull for clean hydrogen from sectors such as mobility or in- between the vehicle adoption process and fuel availability.
dustry. Furthermore, they suggest some solutions to make re- Again, Fernandes et al. [57] collected the opinions of ex-
electrification of hydrogen a viable option: (i) the need for perts in SUDOE regions (program of cooperation of South West
large-scale electricity time-shifts over weeks and months; (ii) Europe, including 30 regions and autonomous cities of Spain,
suitable geology for cavern construction, and (iii) appropriate France, Portugal and Gibraltar), where the use of electrolysis is
electricity market design to deal with a high share of inter- expected to become more widespread. About the barriers that
mittent renewables. prevent the launching of the hydrogen and fuel cell economy,
There are important economic enablers which can make two main obstacles have been underlined: the lack of demand
the PEM-based P2G plants economically viable in the near for hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, and the prohibitive
future [53]. These enablers are: (i) reduction of capital and costs.
fixed costs; (ii) realization of cost premiums, in particular in Customer perceptions are addressed in Refs. [51,56]. In
the mobility sector; and (ii) a regulatory framework aimed to particular, the use of proper lobbing strategies, including the
decrease or delete the payable surcharges. development of multi-stage information-education program,
In Ref. [54] the potential roles of hydrogen fuel/electrolysis to evolve the social mindset, was proposed in Ref. [56].
cells in the future energy network have been explored, When considering the use of hydrogen also for residential
concluding that the non-technical factors e such as the gov- and industrial applications, some barriers found out by the
ernment policies in the finance, tax, environment, etc. e are authors are: (i) cost of electricity for powering the electrolyser
essential. (see e.g. Ref. [41]); (ii) lack of governmental subsidies; (iii) lack
According to Ref. [55], it is important the engagement of of investment in production and distribution infrastructures
several stakeholders involved in a P2G project across different (see e.g. Ref. [34]); and (iv) barriers related to safety.
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In particular, Andreasen & Sovacool [32], in their stake- surplus energy from RES to produce methanol. The objective
holder analysis to identify the most influential actors involved is to mitigate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil
in the hydrogen deployment in Denmark, gathered stake- fuels e currently, the main feed of methanol plants e but an
holder opinions: some of them argued that the lack of sub- additional advantage is obtained: the high amount of oxygen
sidies, as biogas received, can hinder the equal competitive co-produced by water electrolysis process (about 8 kg for each
conditions to introduce into the market the hydrogen tech- kg of H2, at 30 bar) can be sold to different possible users (steel
nologies; others, which advocated of removing subsidies, and chemical industries, hospitals, etc.).
pointed instead to regulation and the necessity of taxing or Sørensen [9] forecast the possibility of supplying one half of
dis-incentivizing behaviours that are not eco-sustainable. the German cars by hydrogen, this concept has been extended
Regulatory frameworks for safety related to the introduc- by other scholars. A wide spectrum of hydrogen applications
tion of hydrogen into the gas network are a crucial issue coming from excess of RES-electricity was reported in
[58e61]: e.g., across Europe the limit of hydrogen blending Ref. [29]. Based on this study [29], outside the electricity sector
vary from 0.1% in the UK, up to 12% by volume in the (i.e. P2P), hydrogen can be used as a fuel for FCEVs, as a
Netherlands [61]. Safety concerns and barriers also exist for feedstock and even as a heating fuel in industry (such as the
hydrogen storage on vehicles [29,45,62,63] and stationary ap- chemical and petrochemical, or the steel industry) and for the
plications [58,60,63]. “greening” of natural gas by admixing it into the natural gas
grid. In the short term, except for the use as a fuel in FCEVs, no
Impacts on the electricity and fuel markets other application will result in a positive business case for
hydrogen from electrolysis whether favourable policy support
As above mentioned, the main issues related to RES-power measures or a “willingness-to-pay a price premium” by the
penetration in electric generation are the grid balance and end-user are not adopted [29]. This concept has been stressed
the management of surplus power. In an electric grid with by Eichman et al. [67] who found that H2 systems that fail to
high renewable power share, electrolysis-hydrogen allows to sell hydrogen have a lower revenue and higher cost than
drain excess of energy granting the balance of the electric grid conventional storage technologies. This is owing to a lower
and opening new market opportunities, this with or without efficiency and higher capital costs for the fuel cell. For this
large scale commercialisation of FCEVs. For instance, some reason, when providing strictly electrical energy storage, the
countries could become hydrogen exporters, in particular hydrogen technologies are not competitive against conven-
countries having large availability of sun and wind power. tional technologies using the selected California electricity
Indeed, international trading of hydrogen has already started. markets. In this way, it is more profitable to sell hydrogen,
Recently (2018), Japan signed an agreement with Australia for produced by an electrolyser or SMR and sold at $3e$10/kg, as a
importing hydrogen to substitute fossil fuels. Also Norway, fuel than selling electricity generated using a fuel cell. The
which produces hydrogen from renewables, competes for authors, besides, assessing the market impacts, state that
becoming a hydrogen supplier. In this context, Chapman et al. with widespread of hydrogen technologies and especially
[64] analysed two alternative pathways in order to use electrolysers to support renewable integration and provide
Australian renewable resources (solar and/or wind) to pro- transportation fuel there are concerns about impacts on
duce hydrogen, by alkaline electrolysis, which would then be electricity markets of introducing such a large flexible load on
shipped for consumption in Japan. The study identified that the system.
the RES-based approaches are currently economically inferior Really, the advantage of using hydrogen for network
to using brown coal gasification as the source for hydrogen ancillary markets (P2P) is largely addressed (see e.g. Refs.
production, resulting in higher investment and generation [10,13,19]) due to fast response time of electrolysers that can
costs (0.21e0.29 V/kWh, assuming a 20-year plant lifetime). be used for frequency control and the possibility of exploiting
However, incorporating social impacts (e.g., CO2 avoided cost the price spread in electric market. The electrolyser technol-
and willingness to pay premium), generation costs reduce to ogy must be used for energy arbitrage and provision of ancil-
about 0.17e0.25 V/kWh. Besides, limitations of scaling up CCS lary electrical services in order to be competitive [36]. Even
on a conventional coal plant (4.39 million tons of sequestra- greater economic benefits can be realized with the sale of
tion capacity per year are required), long-term reducing costs hydrogen into industrial or mobility markets. In addition, to
of renewables, and the prospect to develop complementary offer a high capacity for energy storage, Power-to-Gas also
renewable infrastructure should improve the feasibility of provides industrial hydrogen producers the opportunity to
RES-based pathways. An average capital cost for alkaline increase their profits through the sale of carbon credits.
electrolysis of about 930 V/kW is considered in 2015, which is Summarizing, as reported in Ref. [30], the deployment of
expected to decrease to about 580 V/kW by 2030. Rivarolo et al. electrolysis hydrogen in transport (directly as a fuel, or indi-
[65] investigated hydrogen and methane generation from a rectly as a raw material for the production of conventional
very large hydraulic plant (14 GW), reporting an estimated cost fuels as well as synthetic hydrocarbons) could open an early
of 1400 V/kW for a large size (1 MWe) AEC electrolysis plant. new field of business for industry, allowing investments in a
The plant is fuelled with the “spilled water electricity” not future-oriented energy system.
used by the hydraulic plant, when available; and from the In particular, for Italy, the low cost centralized production
energy of the electrical grid, in the remaining periods. of hydrogen from large scale SMR should facilitate the initial
Another example of market opportunity has been high- transitional period 2020e2030 [48]. Once overcome this (short)
lighted again by Rivarolo et al. [66]. They considered the pos- phase, it is suggested to not further increase the installed SMR
sibility of using hydrogen obtained via electrolysis by utilizing capacity, all the new hydrogen production capacity should be
11382 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 4 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 1 1 3 7 1 e1 1 3 8 4

installed through electrolysers. Particularly, it should be different applications: new fuel supply channels, interna-
encouraged the use of renewable energy produced on-site and tional hydrogen trade, CO2 sequestration, electric grid
self-consumed. By 2020, it is expected a hydrogen production ancillary services.
demand of 2400 kg/day (1400 kg/day from SMR and 1000 kg/ We agree with the idea espoused by some authors that the
day from electrolysis), increased to 3 M kg/day by 2050 (almost first market for green hydrogen will be that of commodities
entirely from electrolysis). (feedstock) for industrial applications, followed by power
The Hydrogen Council [33] highlights that, to build the generation in stationary applications and, then, the mobility
hydrogen economy, investments amounting to $280 billion sector which presents major critical issues (costs, infrastruc-
must be realized until 2030 involving the whole value chain for ture availability, safety implications, etc.).
hydrogen e from production over distribution to retail e and Moreover, in our opinion, up to now all the studies have not
in the industries delivering the equipment for end-use appli- clear addressed the possibility of a change in the current en-
cations. Another aspect pointed out concerns the demand for ergy market paradigm. Nowadays the price of energy,
long-term storage, which, in the next years, will increase including electricity, is fixed by oil price. In the future, in a
significantly at a share of 60e70%. In the report, the case of 100% electric energy from renewables the framework will
Germany is mentioned and it is assumed that to build an change, what will be the parameters that will define the
energy system with around 80e90% renewable electricity, electric energy costs? Moreover, will hydrogen produced from
around 15% of the total electricity generated would go into the excess of RES electric power be able to influence the oil
production of hydrogen. Therefore, without a long-term market?
storage, additional renewable capacity above a certain These issues will be the topics of our future researches.
threshold would not be efficient to build. Finally, they esti-
mate that for enabling the renewable energy system through
hydrogen would require capital investments of about $20
Acknowledgments
billion in distribution infrastructure, including liquefaction
plants and tankers, and $30 billion in storage capacity, such as
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