Nordic Hydrogen Hubs - Roadmaps towards 2030 and 2040

Hydrogen is set to play a crucial role in achieving national and international emission goals by 2050. Not only will it be important to continue developing the technology used to produce, use, transport, and store hydrogen, but for early and efficient deployment it will also be crucial to have well defined hydrogen plans, roadmaps, strategies, and incentives. The Nordic countries are already well positioned to have a significant role in the hydrogen adventure, with large quantities of renewable energy, a long history with processing technology, relevant companies in the field, and importantly, expertise knowledge on the know-how. However, there are still challenges to address in unlocking the potential of the billion-dollar hydrogen industry worldwide. Some of these challenges are cost of production, transport, and storage; infrastructure and standardization; socio-economic barriers, access to competence, market creation and the establishment of Nordic hydrogen value chains. Through the NordicH2ubs project a better understanding of these challenges in the Nordic countries, and across sectors, will be obtained to clarify the pathways toward Nordic hydrogen value chains. This will in turn accelerate the marked while lowering the risk for both industry and government. NordicH2ubs will bring together strong and diverse R&D-, industry-, regulatory-, and observing partners across the Nordics, by addressing the research and innovation needed. Five case studies will be performed in cooperation between researchers, industry actors, government entities and funding agencies. The aim of the case studies is to understand how to guarantee successful cross-sectorial linkage between Nordic hydrogen hubs across land and sea, in the coming decades. In addition to the case studies, NordicH2ubs will also address multiple levels of key enabling elements for successful Nordic hydrogen valleys. The project will focus on safety and standardization aspects concerning hydrogen storage in ports and quality assurance for hydrogen transportation, examining them at the site level. Additionally, socio-economic barriers hindering cross-sector collaboration will be investigated at the country level. To facilitate analysis and decision-making on a broader scale, NordicH2ubs will develop a modelling toolbox using three existing open-source models. This toolbox will operate at the Nordic level and enable the study of interactions between Nordic hydrogen value chains and the wider energy system. The toolbox will be used to study how Nordic hydrogen value chains interacts with the wider energy system. This will include long-term strategic investments and short-term operation between relevant energy carriers and sources. NordicH2ubs is a Nordic collaboration financed by Nordic Energy Research. The project partners include SINTEF (Industry, Digital, Ocean, Energy), NTNU, Chalmers University of Technology, Aalborg University, VTT, Icelandic New Energy, DBI (The Danish Institute of Fire and Safety), Kemira, Greenstat, Everfuel, Norwegian Hydrogen, Þrymur, Aalborg Forsyning and Alleima

To scale up and implement hydrogen across sectors in the Nordic countries, significant challenges need to be addressed. These challenges, among others, relate to the cost of production, transport, and storage; infrastructure and standardization; socio-economic barriers, access to competence, market creation and not the least the creation of hydrogen value chains. The main hypothesis in NordicH2ubs is that a better understanding of such challenges across the Nordic countries and across NordicH2ubs sectors makes the pathways towards hydrogen value chains clearer, accelerates the Nordic Carbon Neutrality efforts, while lowering the risks for industry and governments. NordicH2ubs will foster the formation of hydrogen valleys in the Nordic countries by bringing NordicH2ubs together strong and diverse R&D-, industry- and regulatory partners as well as observers across the Nordics, by accelerating the research and innovation needed to address these challenges, thus creating pathways towards Nordic hydrogen valleys in 2030 and 2040. Case studies will be performed by researchers and leading industry actors in close cooperation with governmental entities and funding agencies, resulting in improved understanding on how to ensure successful cross-sectorial linkage between Nordic hydrogen hubs across land and sea towards 2030 and 2040. In parallel with the case studies, the project will address key enabling elements towards successful Nordic hydrogen valleys. On a country level, socio-economic barriers related to cross-sectorial collaboration, including competence needs in the Nordics and regulations that hinder Nordic hydrogen uptake will be identified. On the Nordic level, NordicH2ubs will develop a modelling toolbox based on three existing open-source models which will be used to study how Nordic hydrogen value chains interacts with the wider energy system, including long-term strategic investments and short-term operations between all relevant energy carriers.