© Fraunhofer IEE

Many regions of the world can be considered prime locations for the production of green hydrogen and renewably manufactured synthetic fuels. How much actual potential each area has to offer, though, has now been revealed in detail in the first-ever global power-to-x atlas. The assessment of each site’s technical and economic potential is based on extensive analysis, for example the availability of land and the weather conditions. Other factors taken into consideration include local water supplies, ecological issues, investment security and transport costs.

Great hope rests on green hydrogen as a means of producing synthetic fuels. The expectation is that these energy carriers will replace their fossil-based counterparts in industry, transport and other sectors. As in many other countries, Germany attaches a high degree of importance to these power-to-x fuels in its climate policies.

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But where could carbon-neutral fuels be sustainably made? How much could be produced and at what cost? And how would the costs be affected by transporting those fuels? The answer to these questions is something that the PtX atlas drawn up by the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology IEE makes crystal clear.

The focus of the study is on locations outside the European economic area. For example, the map allows interested parties to call up relevant PtX sites along with their achievable full load hours and possible outputs, the production costs for various power-to-x fuels as well as the costs of their transportation to Europe.

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The PtX atlas came about as part of the DeVKopSys project supported by the German environment ministry. The aim of the project is to scientifically examine development pathways in the transport sector that would be compatible with the climate objectives of the German government, while also taking into account other sectors of the energy system.

Sufficient supplies

The result shows that, while applying strict sustainability criteria for the site analysis, a total of around 109,000 terawatt-hours of liquid green hydrogen or 87,000 terawatt-hours of synthetic fuels can be produced each year in the long term outside of Europe. These synthetically produced fuels are also known as synfuels or power to liquids – PtLs for short. […]

… Read this article to the end in the latest H2-International

Author: Maximilian Pfennig – FIEE, Kassel, Germany