Optimising the Sector Coupling in a Hydrogen valley: a Techno-economic Assessment for a Port Ecosystem

The climate change and recent energy crisis have prompted the European Union (EU) to expedite the energy transition while ensuring energy security. Hydrogen, with its extensive applications, plays a crucial role in this transition. Hydrogen valleys offer the potential for large-scale green hydrogen production. Ports, as logistical hubs with diverse industries and natural sector coupling, are ideal locations for hydrogen valleys. The study assesses hydrogen valley establishment at the Port of Hirtshals in Northern Denmark, focusing on sector integration possibilities and identifying implementation bottlenecks. Techno-economic data was collected from system stakeholders and open-access databases to formulate hourly profiles for local wind production and offtake demand (hydrogen, oxygen and heat). With the data, an energy system model was created using the open-source modelling framework SpineOpt, enabling cost-optimal system design and operation to be studied. To analyse different implementation scenarios, alternative hydrogen offtake levels (300–860 tH2/a), wind resource availability conditions, and electrolyser technology selections were considered. The preliminary results indicate increased economic benefit from sector integration (up to 5.1 M€/a) due to additional revenue streams for sold oxygen, excess heat and excess electricity. Availability of excess electricity (29%) and disposal of excess heat (47%) at maximum hydrogen offtake indicates system upscaling potential for improved resource utilisation. Finally, emission reductions of 8.2 ktCO2-eq/a were shown possible, mainly originating from replacing industrial natural gas consumption with hydrogen. Future analysis will explore an upscaled system with increased electrolyser and wind capacity, and conduct 10-minute level simulations to quantify technical bottlenecks more accurately.