Green Hydrogen for Carbon Neutral Society: Opportunity, Challenges and Levelized Cost of Production

Energy systems in the world are transitioning towards a carbon neutral society. Especially in EU and in Finland one can already notice a big change in policies and mind shift of the public. Hydrogen and specifically green hydrogen have a potential to accelerate the process of transitioning by allowing its usages in different scenarios such as fuel for electric vehicles and energy storage. This thesis investigates the current status of hydrogen production and storage technology through a literature review. It also identifies and highlight the opportunities and challenges for green hydrogen technologies. Furthermore, this study aims to define a methodology based on existing literature and evaluated levelized costs of hydrogen (LCOH). This work examines the LCOH in different realistic scenarios from a regional perspective of the Vaasa region. This work has been done under project “H2 Ecosystem Roadmap”. This project has been funded by the Regional Council of Ostrobothnia through European Regional Development Fund and Vaasa city. LCOH at 100% capacity factor for AEL were 3.69, 6.14 and 8.59 euro/kg for low, average, and high cases respectively. LCOH for PEM were 2.93, 4.77 and 6,61 euro/kg for low, average, and high cases respectively. LCOH for SOC were 3.28, 5.95 and 8.62 euro/kg for low, average, and high cases respectively. Finally, conclusion shows that continuous efforts on performance improvements, technical prospects and political support are required to enable a cost-competitive green hydrogen economy