TY - JOUR

T1 - Comprehensive techno-economic assessment of power technologies and synthetic fuels under discussion for ship applications

AU - Kistner, Lukas

AU - Bensmann, Astrid

AU - Minke, Christine

AU - Hanke-Rauschenbach, Richard

N1 - Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Germany (BMVI, funding code 03B10605H) and the coordination of the MultiSchIBZ research project by the National Organisation Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NOW GmbH), Germany . The results presented were achieved by computations carried out on the cluster system at the Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany. Funding Information: Operation – Main incentive of a synthetic fuel utilization is the reduction of an application’s carbon footprint. Yet, the usage of carbon-based fuels (FTD, SNG, MeOH) still causes CO emissions during ship operation. For simplicity reasons, however, a fully functioning carbon cycle is assumed. This assumption is supported by the carbon capture energy demand considered for fuel production. Operating CO emissions are therefore neglected in this study.

PY - 2023/9

Y1 - 2023/9

N2 - The decarbonization of the global ship traffic is one of the industry's greatest challenges for the next decades and will likely only be achieved with the introduction of synthetic fuels. Until now, however, not one single best technology solution emerged to ideally fit this task. Instead, different energy carriers including hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, methane, and synthetic diesel are subject of discussion for usage in either internal combustion engines or fuel cells. In order to drive the selection procedure, a case study for the year 2030 with all eligible combinations of power technologies and fuels is conducted. The assessment quantifies the technologies’ economic performances for cost-optimized system designs and in dependence of a ship's mission characteristics. Thereby, the influence of trends for electrofuel prices and shipboard volume opportunity costs are examined. Even if gaseous hydrogen is often considered not suitable for large ship applications due to its low volumetric energy density, both the comparatively small fuel price and the high efficiency of fuel cells lead to the overall smallest system costs for passages up to 21 days, depending on assumed cost parameters. Only for missions longer than seven days, fuel cells operating on methanol or ammonia can compete with gaseous hydrogen economically.

AB - The decarbonization of the global ship traffic is one of the industry's greatest challenges for the next decades and will likely only be achieved with the introduction of synthetic fuels. Until now, however, not one single best technology solution emerged to ideally fit this task. Instead, different energy carriers including hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, methane, and synthetic diesel are subject of discussion for usage in either internal combustion engines or fuel cells. In order to drive the selection procedure, a case study for the year 2030 with all eligible combinations of power technologies and fuels is conducted. The assessment quantifies the technologies’ economic performances for cost-optimized system designs and in dependence of a ship's mission characteristics. Thereby, the influence of trends for electrofuel prices and shipboard volume opportunity costs are examined. Even if gaseous hydrogen is often considered not suitable for large ship applications due to its low volumetric energy density, both the comparatively small fuel price and the high efficiency of fuel cells lead to the overall smallest system costs for passages up to 21 days, depending on assumed cost parameters. Only for missions longer than seven days, fuel cells operating on methanol or ammonia can compete with gaseous hydrogen economically.

KW - Decarbonization of the shipping sector

KW - Environmental assessment

KW - Fuel cells

KW - Ship power systems

KW - Synthetic fuels

KW - System design optimization

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85162161699&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.rser.2023.113459

DO - 10.1016/j.rser.2023.113459

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85162161699

VL - 183

JO - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

JF - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

SN - 1364-0321

M1 - 113459

ER -