Guest Lecture: An Analysis of Renewable Hydrogen Production Costs
This event has already taken place.
Speaker: Dr. Remko Detz, TNO and University of Amsterdam 
Abstract
The transition to a sustainable energy system is essential to meet global climate targets and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Several promising approaches for producing renewable hydrogen are being developed in this context, such as electrolysis and solar hydrogen systems. In this presentation, the current costs of electrolysis are discussed based on a market consultation for projects in the Netherlands. Next, a technoeconomic assessment of a solar hydrogen facility will be presented. For the latter, several factors that influence the cost of hydrogen production have been investigated, such as the impact of solar intermittency, intermediate energy storage, energy efficiency, system scale, and the pressure of the delivered hydrogen. The results indicate that solar hydrogen production costs may become competitive with those of both fossil-based and electrolytic hydrogen. Notably, to reach a target < 3 €/kg, the system should have a decent scale (~100,000 panels) and the costs of the solar hydrogen panels should become low enough, <150 €/m², and the system should operate at a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of at least 20%. Further analysis and development is necessary to investigate if such cost reductions can be realized and how.