ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Sustainable Energy Systems
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2025.1600803
This article is part of the Research TopicExport and import of electrolytic hydrogen using renewable energy and subsequent synthetic fuels between regions – assessment of technology routes, potentials, and strategiesView all 7 articles
Technical analysis of hydrogen-based fuel supply chain routes for the maritime industry
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute for Maritime Energy Systems, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Geesthacht, Germany
- 2Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, Germany
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The share of renewable electricity generation has been growing steadily over the past few years. However, not all sectors can be fully electrified to reach decarbonization goals. The maritime industry, which plays a critical role in international trade, is one such sector. This allows for a global strategic approach towards the production, transportation, and use of synfuels, thereby offering economies of scale for the energy transition. There are sufficient potential locations around the world, such as hydropower in Norway, wind turbines in the North Sea, and photovoltaics in the Sahara, where synfuels can be produced and utilized within the country as well as exported to demand hubs. Since the entire demand of a country may not be fulfilled by domestic production, a scenario-based approach is necessary to evaluate the feasibility of supply chains pillaring on the demand of the respective sector of utilization. This paper utilizes the pipeline-and ship-based transport scenarios of hydrogen and derived ammonia and methanol from the origin country to the destination. Thereby, the overall supply chain efficiency of hydrogen-derived ammonia and methanol for maritime applications is analyzed based on the individual supply chain energy consumption from production to bunkering of the fuel to a vessel. Furthermore, the exporting country's hydrogen strategies are investigated to formulate recommendations for import between countries. As an example, through these analyses, recommendations for supply from Norway, Algeria, and Namibia at the Port of Wilhelmshaven within a supply chain are examined.
Keywords: energy consumption, Hydrogen, Scenario, supply chain, Maritime
Received: 26 Mar 2025; Accepted: 18 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dave, Marquez Torres, Kazemi Esfeh, Baetcke and Ehlers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yasha Dave, Institute for Maritime Energy Systems, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Geesthacht, Germany
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