Hydrogen Supply chain results – Costs

82 Transportation

The hydrogen is moved through grids only by road transportation. This is mainly due to the fact that the amount of hydrogen transported is quite limited, so the high upfront costs, typical of big infrastructures as pipelines, cannot be amortized over time. In the algorithm, 𝑄, , , , is the positive variable that depicts the transmitted hydrogen between regions, so can be analyzed to do some interesting considerations.

Table 62: Hydrogen transported

The amount of hydrogen transported remains practically constant during the two initial periods. The amount of H2 transported decreases in the third one, due to a relevant number of new installed decentralized electrolysers. This trend is then reversed in the last period with the installation of a centralized SMR plant, which double the amount of H2 transported in tube trailers and brings the entry of tanker trucks, which are transporting H2 in liquid form. The total H2 transported in the fourth period is in fact quintupled, which means that, in conjunction with the installation of a centralized production plant, the amount of transported hydrogen increases.

Since only compressed hydrogen is present in the first three periods, only the tube trailers have been considered. Then, tanker trucks are used to transport the liquid hydrogen produced by the SMR. In the second period, no capital costs for new transportation units are considered, since the trucks bought in the first period are sufficient to cover the transportation demand and because a 10-year lifetime is assumed for road transportation.

Refueling stations

As explained above, there is always a storage and a conditioning system at the refueling stations, to better simulate all the processes taking place at a real hydrogen refueling station. As explained in the previous chapter, there will be 7 stations for the industrial sector, all of which already there. In this case, the differentiation between large and small sizes does not matter.

For the mobility sector instead is interesting to observe that the algorithm selected preferentially the larger size. The small stations in fact are only 6, considering the whole time period.

Fueling stations are the points of contact between end users and the supply chain, so their number is closely tied to the demand for hydrogen in each grid.

83 CAPEX

The capital costs are reported below in Tab.63.

Table 63: CAPEX of HSC

Fig. 21 gives a clear view on how CAPEX are split on the different blocks of the supply chain.

Figure 21: Distribution of CAPEX of the HSC blocks

It is clear from the data above that transportation units represent an almost irrelevant portion of the installation costs. Hydrogen production systems lead the group accounting for nearly 40% of total capital costs, followed by centralized storage and refueling stations, which are both roughly 29%.

In the first period the highest cost is related to the hydrogen production technologies, as could be imagined, with almost 610M€. This cost is almost four times higher than storage one and three times bigger than the refueling station. It must be highlighted how the first period represents a strong penetration of hydrogen technologies, starting from a scenario without any previously installed technology.

In the second period, however, CAPEX is greatly reduced, with the total HSC cost for this period being less than the cost of production systems alone in the previous period. However, the block with the highest capital costs sill is the production one, followed by the refueling station and centralized storage.

In the third period production and refueling station block account for almost 90% of the capital cost.

The fourth period is characterized by the installation of new LH2 storage systems, this is why in this period the most impacting blocks on the CAPEX are the centralized storages and the refueling stations.

OPEX & Maintenance (O&M)

The operating and maintenance costs are shown in Tab.64.

1 2 3 4 All periods

Production 610.160.000 € 215.760.000 € 399.760.000 € 92.700.000 € 1.318.380.000 € Centralized storage + Conditioning 153.600.000 € 105.600.000 € 76.800.000 € 630.000.000 € 966.000.000 € Transportation 20.000.000 € - € 23.200.000 € 38.400.000 € 81.600.000 € Storage + Conditioning + HRS 189.645.500 € 146.899.500 € 314.534.000 € 304.166.500 € 955.245.500 €

Period CAPEX

39,7%

29,1%

2,5%

28,8%

H2 production Centralized Storage +

Conditioning Transporation Decentralized Storage + Conditioning + HRS

Investment costs

84

Table 64: O&M of HSC

As done for the capital cost, a comparison of the HSC blocks is provided below, in order to immediately understand which block have higher O&M costs.

Figure 22: Distribution of O&M of the HSC blocks

In this case, a summation of these costs over the periods does not make sense because these are expressed in € per day, so in Fig.22 the costs of the last period are compared. It can be observed that, as for the CAPEX, costs related to transportation are really small. It is also clear that the largest contribution to operating costs comes from the purchase of energy sources, consumed as feedstock by production systems. Indeed, the purchase of electricity, methane and hydrogen in the last period account for almost 60% of the overall O&M costs. The second most expensive block is centralized storage, primarily due to the large expenses associated with conditioning and storing liquid hydrogen.

However, this cost distribution is not constant through all the periods: till the third period indeed the primary energy costs cover almost 70% of the total O&M costs, followed by the production costs with almost 15%. In these initial periods centralized storage, transportation, and fueling station costs all together account for nearly 15% of total O&M. This is due to the fact that only compressed hydrogen is in the network and therefore its conditioning and storage is cheaper.

1 2 3 4

Primary energy sources 450.532 €/day 810.303 €/day 1.372.003 €/day 1.333.437 €/day Production 108.311 €/day 173.614 €/day 290.352 €/day 272.338 €/day Centralized storage + Conditioning 49.421 €/day 83.587 €/day 113.635 €/day 404.064 €/day Transportation 22.802 €/day 21.136 €/day 26.003 €/day 63.384 €/day Storage + Conditioning + HRS 29.973 €/day 54.091 €/day 105.167 €/day 154.822 €/day

O&M cost Period

59,8%

12,2% 18,1%

2,8% 6,9%

Primary energy

source H2 production Centralized Storage + Conditioning

Transportation Decentralized Storage + Conditioning +

HRS

Maintenance and operating costs

85