An economic feasibility study of hydrogen production by electrolysis in relation to offshore wind energy at Oxelösund

Sammanfattning: In the light of the world’s environmental concerns, every instance of society and in turn our industries, must take their responsibility in order to reach the goals set for ensuring a sustainable future. Standing globally for almost 10 % of all carbon emissions, the steel industry is a major actor in this problem. It is of great importance to change their processes if we are to reach our set goals. Swedish steel and energy industries have started working together to solve this in order to remain competitive in a future market which might value sustainability higher than ever. This is the background to the HYBRIT project which focuses on a new way of producing steel using hydrogen instead of coal, in a process called hydrogenation. Hydrogen can be produced in many ways, but electrolysis shows the greater sustainable potential and is therefore the focus for HYBRIT. The focus for this project is to examine the economic potential in hydrogen production by electrolysis in connection to an offshore wind energy farm. Various system sizes, types and designs were evaluated to understand how and if this could be considered economically feasible. During the study it became clear that these kinds of projects show great potential in order to reduce carbon emissions and an economic potential could be observed. Concerns arise when trying to reach the lowest hydrogen prices available on the market today but even these systems could be valued positive when applying low internal rates of returns. The main conclusion is that there is an economic potential for electrolysis systems in relation to offshore wind energy. What value this system might take, mostly comes down to investment costs, electricity prices and agreements between the concerned parties. In addition, green hydrogen could potentially be valued higher than market minimums and therefore increase the economic potential further. It can also be discussed that a deal stretching over multiple years could be considered stable and in turn increase value. Availability power production and hydrogen storage mostly affects the amount of green energy that is utilized in the process.