Liquid hydrogen to decarbonize maritime transport in Norway.

The overall idea is to build a full-scale national hydrogen infrastructure in order to secure a reliable supply chain of liquid hydrogen (LH2) to maritime applications. The value chain is illustrated below. The development will be done by companies throughout the supply chain, with the aim to provide the lowest possible hydrogen price delivered to end users (primarily ships). Hydrogen is considered the best means to enable decarbonizing ships operating in/to/from Norway as it is a zero-emission fuel which may allow significant autonomy in the ship. Weight, space and volume onboard are intrinsic design elements in terms of expected revenue from passengers and cargo as well as the energy required for ship propulsion. When aiming to introduce a new fuel these elements have been considered in depth by Norled in the process of selecting LH2 for the Hjelmeland ferry under construction, as well as for the high-speed passenger ferry under development (ongoing Pilot-E project, ZEFF). Compressed hydrogen when compared with LH2 requires more space onboard (factor of 4 for available technology) and have longer bunkering time (factor of 6-8). The key elements to reduce the production cost are to plan for large volumes. Produced on a strategic location with access to lowest possible electricity prices, use of bi-products from electrolysis, reliable and efficient zero emission sea-born distribution and a new flexible concept for hydrogen terminals for distribution, storage and bunkering. Through ongoing projects in the partnership, it is claimed that ship technology is ready for hydrogen as fuel, but the value chain to provide this fuel is missing. This project has an ambition to build and operate a large-scale value chain with a high daily capacity to aggregate customer needs and to identify the optimal size to match LH2 customer needs. The initial end-user requirements from the project partners (Norled, Wilhelmsen and others), is estimated to app. 6 tons per day.