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16 min ago 2 min read
Conversion costs of liquid hydrogen (LH2) and ammonia add more to hydrogen transportation costs than physical shipping, according to Callum Turnbull, Hydrogen Consultant at engineering and consulting firm Wood.
Turnbull revealed his hydrogen transportation model which estimates the levelised cost of hydrogen transport based on the cost of each leg of a route, alongside the infrastructure, conversion, and compression processes.
While the model, showcased at the Hydrogen Technology Expo, “consistently predicted ammonia as the cheapest method” when transporting by sea, Turnbull said conversions could significantly increase overall costs.
Elaborating on specific transport routes, including from Scotland to Germany and from Spain to Germany, he said that choice of transport method was only part of the picture.
In the Scotland-Germany case study, the model’s optimal route combined a pipeline to the Scottish port of Cromarty Firth, ammonia shipping, cracking and compression, and a second pipeline inland to a hypothetical end-user in Leipzig.
The pipeline and conversion steps, Turnbull said, raised the assumed cheapest possible delivery costs by 30%.
A breakdown of the costs showed the largest contributor was not the shipping itself but the process steps, with the opex of the Haber-Bosch process alone significantly exceeding the cost of LH2 and ammonia shipping legs.
“We can probably deliver hydrogen over longer distances than perhaps may be obvious, so long as we’re minimising the conversion steps,” added Turnbull.
The case studies assumed a delivery capacity of 200,000 tonnes per year.
It comes as ammonia and LH2 present potential pathways for hydrogen transportation.
