Environmental and climate impacts of a large-scale deployment of green hydrogen in Europe
Haiping Shen, Pedro Crespo del Granado, Raquel Santos Jorge, Konstantin Löffler
Abstract
• Introduces a novel approach of taking life cycle assessment (LCA) into account in the strategy of large-scale hydrogen deployment. • LCA links with energy system model, revealing 45% extra climate impact caused by the dedicated 50% extra renewable infrastructure for green hydrogen. • Compares the life cycle climate impact and its process contribution within four designed scenarios related to hydrogen deployment. • Employs monetized life cycle impacts of 13 categories for green and blue hydrogen production. • Green hydrogen wins on climate impact but loses on other environmental impacts of human health and ecosystem damage due to higher material consumption on the infrastructure. Green hydrogen is expected to play a vital role in decarbonizing the energy system in Europe. However, large-scale deployment of green hydrogen has associated potential trade-offs in terms of climate and other environmental impacts. This study aims to shed light on a comprehensive sustainability assessment of this large-scale green hydrogen deployment based on the EMPIRE energy system modeling, compared with other decarbonization paths. Process-based Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is applied and connected with the output of the energy system model, revealing 45% extra climate impact caused by the dedicated 50% extra renewable infrastructure to deliver green hydrogen for the demand in the sectors of industry and transport in Europe towards 2050. Whereas, the analysis shows that green hydrogen eventually wins on the climate impact within four designed scenarios (with green hydrogen, with blue hydrogen, without green hydrogen, and baseline), mainly compensated by its clean usage and renewable electricity supply. On the other hand, green hydrogen has a lower performance in other environmental impacts including human toxicity, ecotoxicity, mineral use, land use, and water depletion. Furthermore, a monetary valuation of Life Cycle Impact (LCI) is estimated to aggregate 13 categories of environmental impacts between different technologies. Results indicate that the total monetized LCI cost of green hydrogen production is relatively lower than that of blue hydrogen. In overview, a large-scale green hydrogen deployment potentially shifts the environmental pressure from climate and fossil resource use to human health, mineral resource use, and ecosystem damage due to its higher material consumption of the infrastructure.