Assessment of liquid hydrogen and derivatives for international maritime energy transport

Renewable synthetic fuels are expected to play an important role in long-distance energy transport and the decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors. This study evaluates the cost-optimal production and transport of methanol (MeOH), ammonia ( NH 3 ), liquid hydrogen ( LH 2 ), synthetic Fischer–Tropsch fuels (synFT), and liquefied synthetic natural gas (synLNG) using an hourly resolved optimization model that accounts for renewable variability, storage integration, and shipping. Delivered costs range from 115-200 USD/MWh for MeOH and 180-310 USD/MWh for synLNG, with the remaining carriers falling in between. Electricity-related costs contribute more than 41% of total costs, while shipping represents only a minor share, even for long-distance transport. Even though the wind sites achieve substantially higher FLH, wind-based systems still require larger hydrogen and fuel storage capacities than the solar-based systems to balance multi-day variability. Overall, renewable resource quality and system integration have a greater influence on delivered costs than carrier choice or transport distance.