Demonstration of liquid hydrogen as a fuel for segments of the waterborne sector

Topic description

Specific Challenge:

Shipping contributes significantly to local air pollution in major harbour areas and around 3% of global CO2 emissions. Shipping is bound to grow together with global trade and against other sectors decarbonising more quickly. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has found that GHG emissions from ships have already increased by 70% since 1990 [33] and the European Commission strategy [34] estimates that without action the global share of shipping's GHG emissions may reach 17% by 2050. IMO has set a 50% reduction target for emissions related to maritime transport by 2050 compared to 2008, and an ambition of full decarbonization by 2100. In this context, the shipping market is forced to identify more sustainable fuels on the route to full decarbonisation and adopt new technologies for on-board energy conversion for all its fields (cargo, passenger ferries, cruise, service/supply vessels…).

Hydrogen as a fuel can enable zero-emission shipping in both GHG and pollutant emissions. However, the volumetric energy density of gaseous hydrogen is a limiting factor in terms of range which is critical for several types of ships. Hydrogen in its liquid form at approx. 20Kelvin (LH2) is a promising solution to address this issue but little knowledge related to the handling and use of LH2 within the shipping sector exists today due to a lack of demonstration projects. In turn, it hampers the progression of its inclusion in relevant regulations. Similarly, managing LH2 within a port environment (where industrial clusters users of hydrogen are often found) is yet to be demonstrated, with its subsequent learnings.

There are currently several challenges associated with using liquid hydrogen as a fuel in shipping:

• The total system's energy and power density as well as redundancy should be adequately secured for the specific applications;
• Not sufficiently mature/developed regulations, codes and standards (RCS), apply currently to hydrogen-related technologies in maritime environment. The time-consuming and ship type specific Alternative Design process may exhibit an unavoidable challenge, as IMO rules are not yet in place;
• Market deployment, cost reduction strategies (including maintenance for marine environments) leading to viable business models need to be developed;
• The public domain needs to be addressed, ensuring the acceptance of these new propulsion systems by the shipping industry and public.

[33] http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Environment/PollutionPrevention/AirPollution/Pages/GHG-Emissions.aspx

[34] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/shipping_en

The scope of this topic is to develop a prototype of a maritime power system operating on LH2 including bunkering concept with the potential for scaling-up (for larger amount of stored energy in adequacy with a 20 MW system, preferably fuel cell based), ensuring minimisation of hydrogen loss/leakage/boil-off. The system should be capable to deliver to the ship propulsion and/or on-board energy needs. The prototype's scalability needs to be proven ensuring the capability to completely replace prevailing ship propulsion systems.

A reference ship should be selected for the ship’s operational profile, the power/energy requirements and volume/weight constraints defined. A type of ship within an early adopters' segment of maritime transport preferably with potential for extensive use and widespread deployment is recommended, to secure the overall impact of the effort.
The proposals should address the following technical components/issues of the prototype system:

• LH2 fuel supply/bunkering infrastructure;
• LH2 storage and distribution in a ship, with a minimum of 1.5 tons of tank capacity;
• A power system of minimum 2 MW output, preferably based on fuel cell technology; other conventional technology solutions (such as combustion engines) could be offered, but their development is not considered within the scope of the topic and therefore not supported by funding;
• Evaluate the technical feasibility and the benefit of cogeneration to provide additionally heat to the ship and, if possible tri-generation including cooling;
• Identify best configuration of electrical architecture for an optimal integration (e.g. AC/DC grids, power management system, batteries, etc…), allowing for hybridizing potential with different combination of fuel cells, batteries, super cap, or combustion engines if desired;
• The performance, durability and efficiency of the prototype system should be demonstrated according to the operational profiles defined by the reference ship. The project should include an operational/testing period of at least 12 months (including both winter and summer season) and a minimum of 3,000 operational hours. Bunkering to sustain the normal operational profile of the system should be considered;
• Scalability to suit larger 20 MW applications should be proven at design phase including definition and design of physical on-board integration and interconnection with other main ship’s systems (e.g. fuel, electric, thermal) for the 20 MW scale system with corresponding energy storage requirements.

In addition, the project should address the regulatory, economic and societal issues such as:

• Address and contribute to develop regulations, codes and standards (RCS) needed for shipping application, including the safety issues related to H2 fuelling protocols/bunkering and the H2 fuel storage;
• Establish/include a ship design where storage of LH2 is fully integrated into the ship, in order to pave the way for more integrated solutions and contribute to the establishment and further development of maritime rules and guidelines for selected H2 powered vessel design(s) in line with class/flag/port approval requirements;
• Assess and propose suitable business models, to foster further commercialisation of technical hydrogen solutions both on board the vessel and bunkering/refuelling;
• Quantify the potential for cost reductions as the hydrogen technologies mature and define the necessary roadmap;
• Assess the advantages of using hydrogen systems in combination with the liquid hydrogen (LH2) in terms of emission reduction during operation, noise reduction, availability and reliability;
• Discuss /share experiences with the shipping industry to contribute to raise awareness of the potential of hydrogen-based technology, and accelerate the development of LH2 for different types of ships;
• Define training requirements for operator and crews.

The project should contribute towards the activities of Mission Innovation - Hydrogen Innovation Challenge. Cooperation with entities from Hydrogen Innovation Challenge member countries, which are neither EU Member States nor Horizon 2020 Associated countries, is encouraged (see chapter 3.3 for the list of countries eligible for funding, and point G. International Cooperation).

The project should closely follow the developments in the IGF Code Correspondence Group at the IMO [35], works of the European Sustainable Shipping Forum (Sub-group on alternative fuels) [36] and relevant work of the certification bodies.
Finally, the following activities should be also included:

• Validate in laboratory system components' performance, durability and efficiency for use profiles defined by reference ship application;
• Evaluate ship’s performance through two dimensions Least Cost Path (LCP) Analysis: horizontally i.e. spanning the entire lifecycle of the ship and vertically i.e. assessing the overall impact of fuel chain (production, distribution and utilization) for prototype while the LH2 market matures;
• Evaluate the economics of the proposed solution and lay out a pathway towards a positive business case through the entire value chain;
• Define a go-to market strategy supported by marine industry and ships operators;
• Address project’s activities complementing the projects funded under the following calls:
• Horizon 2020: LC-MG-1.8-2019, “Retrofit Solutions and Next Generation Propulsion for Waterborne Transport” [37];
• FCH-01-2-2019 “Scaling up and demonstration of a multi-MW Fuel Cell system for shipping” [38].

TRL at start of the project: 5 and TRL at the end of the project: 7.

Any safety-related event that may occur during execution of the project shall be reported to the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) dedicated mailbox JRC-PTT-H2SAFETY@ec.europa.eu , which manages the European hydrogen safety reference database, HIAD and the Hydrogen Event and Lessons LEarNed database, HELLEN. A draft safety plan at project level should be provided in the proposal and further updated during project implementation (deliverable to be reviewed by the European Hydrogen Safety Panel (EHSP)).

Activities developing test protocols and procedures for the performance and durability assessment of fuel cell components should foresee a collaboration mechanism with JRC (see section 3.2.B "Collaboration with JRC"), in order to support EU-wide harmonisation. Test activities should adopt the already published FCH 2 JU harmonized testing protocols to benchmark performance and quantify progress at programme level.

“CertifHy Green H2“ guarantees of origin should be used through the CertifHy platform39 to ensure that the hydrogen produced and used is of renewable nature.

The maximum FCH 2 JU contribution that may be requested is EUR 8 million. This is an eligibility criterion – proposals requesting FCH 2 JU contributions above this amount will not be evaluated.

Expected duration: 5 years (including 12 months of ship operation, all seasons included).

[35] http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/28-CCC1IGF.aspx#.XclUo1dKg2w

[36] https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/index.cfm?do=groupDetail.groupDetail&groupID=2869

[37] https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/lc-mg-1-8-2019

[38] https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/fch-01-2-2019

[39] https://fch.europa.eu/page/certifhy-designing-first-eu-wide-green-hydrogen-guarantee-origin-new-hydrogen-market

As the aim of this topic is to develop and demonstrate a prototype of a large hydrogen system capable of providing large autonomy under usual maritime operational conditions, it should prove that the developed technology is viable on-board a given vessel and that the scalability is possible for providing full propulsion and auxiliary loads for ships.

The expected impact should include:

• Validating that the power system may reach a durability of 25,000 h (by applying AST protocols);
• Demonstrating the relevance of LH2 as a solution to decarbonise relevant segments of the shipping sector;
• Approval of specific ship type following the Alternative Design process, thereby facilitating faster deployment of more ships of same type;
• Ensuring that appropriate training processes are in place to safety manage LH2 both in a port environment and on a ship;
• Demonstrating an availability of 97 % for the entire prototype system during operation;
• Improving environmental performance of waterborne transport towards achieving a goal of low-to-zero-emission;
• Increasing EU's competitive lead in green shipping technology;
• Fostering further development of regulations, codes and standards for maritime hydrogen applications;
• The proposed solution, when implemented in a vessel, should be able to reduce the CO2 and NOx emissions by 90%, compared to incumbent technologies (i.e., heavy fuel oil converted in combustion engines), in a tank to wake perspective.

The conditions related to this topic are provided in the chapter 3.3 of the FCH2 JU 2020 Annual Work Plan and in the General Annexes to the Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2018– 2020 which apply mutatis mutandis.