Local production of Hydrogen

The EU's Seafuel project is harnessing the expertise and infrastructure of the partners in renewable energy, namely solar, wind and marine, to demonstrate the viability of hydrogen as a fuel to be used by the local transport authorities. The success of the project will promote a sustainable transport system that can be adopted by other Atlantic regions. more

"SEAFUEL aims to demonstrate the feasibility to power local transportation networks using fuels produced by renewable energies and seawater, with no net carbon footprint as promoted by the resource-efficient flagship initiative COM(2010)2020. It will cover technical innovation by a demonstration plant, a framework for policy implementation and a sustainability analysis of production, distribution and usage of hydrogen as an alternative fuel in remote Atlantic regions. The energy required will provide from renewable resources available across the Atlantic Area such as solar, wind and marine. SEAFUEL will focus on enhancing the green growth and blue economy and paving the grounds for common renewable energy policies to promote clean and sustainable transport systems. Isolated areas such as islands face the specific challenge of the high cost of electricity and fuel and their dependency on mainland infrastructures. SEAFUEL will target these regions where 30% of fuel consumption comes from local transportation. The project will drastically reduce greenhouse emissions, PM and NO2 in line with the Clean Air programme 2008/50/EC, and provide a pathway for isolated regions to become energetically independent, leading to future installations in the other Atlantic regions. An alternative fuels model for islands will be developed to fulfil the requirements of the Partners Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS3) aimed at low carbon economy and efficient use of marine resources."

The Community Hydrogen Forum (CH2F) is a platform designed to help everyone understand the opportunities hydrogen technologies offer, especially in Northwest Europe. The platform is intended to be a forum for national, regional, and local governments, energy agencies, community development groups, energy cooperatives, educational institutions, renewable energy developers, transport sectors, and grid operators.  more

The potential of electricity-based fuels for low--emission transport. published 11/2017 Download

Advantages and disadvantages of e--fuels

• E--fuels have a high energy density and can therefore be transported conveniently over long distances and kept in large scale stationary storage over extended periods, allowing them to compensate even seasonal supply fluctuations and thus contribute to stabilizing the energy supply.
• The entire petrol/diesel/kerosene/gas infrastructure (pipelines, gas stations) can continue to be used.
• E--fuels can be used by the existing stock of passenger and utility vehicles (legacy) and by transport modes that are hard to electrify (aviation and shipping).
• The overall energy efficiency of electricity use in battery electric vehicles is 4--6 times, and via hydrogen in fuel cell vehicles about 2 times higher than e--fuels in combustion engines including grid integration.