Search

Green hydrogen, produced from renewable electricity, can be transported long distances in multiple mediums. In this paper, a Techno-economic model is proposed to show the economic viability of global green hydrogen transport along 15 major regional routes such as Australia to Asia and Europe for the first time. A Monte Carlo-based technique is presented to assess the levelised cost of green hydrogen for different regions for the next 30 years. Depending on the specific route, green hydrogen can be transported in different forms, including ammonia, Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier (LOHC), Hydrogen Slush, compressed or liquefied hydrogen, etc. form and using different modes including shipping, truck, train, and pipeline. A linear programming analysis has been conducted for different regions, showing that among the global projected 300Mt of green hydrogen demand in 2050, 85% will need to be transported between regions to achieve the most economically optimal distribution. • Techno-economic analysis of green H 2 export via 15 worldwide regional trade routes. • Export model includes H2 generation, conversion, transport, and carbon prices. • In 2030, North America will be the largest exporter, followed by Australia. • Higher carbon prices allow for rapid growth in the green hydrogen industry. • Shipping is the most likely and cheapest H 2 export mode for distant transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has significant offshore wind resources that can support ever-increasing power demand and hence provide a long-term contribution to the net-zero target by 2050. Although some offshore wind farm projects are proposed in Australia, the industry is not mature enough to justify the benefits and display economic opportunities. More specifically, the techno-economic analysis of offshore wind energy has not been systematically mapped in Australia. Therefore, the investigation of the spatial variation of technical feasibility and economic potential of offshore wind is vital to identify the potential regions and to develop strategies for future offshore wind farm developments in Australia. This paper presents detailed mappings of the techno-economic potential of offshore wind energy in Victoria-Tasmania's exclusive economic zone. Offshore wind energy resources are assessed in the paper in terms of energy availability and variability and the feasibility of various offshore wind technologies is investigated, including turbines, foundation types and transmission topologies. In addition, the high-fidelity life-cycle cost models and two innovative evaluation matrices are developed to assess the economic potential of offshore energy farms in South-eastern Australia. The impact of local power system regulation costs and future carbon prices on the viability of offshore wind is also investigated in this paper. It is concluded that the detailed mapping approach and analysis in the paper can provide a systematic tool for industry partners, investors and policymakers at the pre-planning stage of developing offshore renewable energy systems. • The technical feasibility of offshore wind is mapped under various constraints. • The novel LACE and high-fidelity LCC assessment models are developed. • The techno-economic potential is systemically mapped in South-eastern Australia. • The impacts of electricity market regulation and future carbon prices are studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • High-potential Australian hydrogen hubs with existing infrastructure. • Hybrid wind-solar generation and flexible Haber-Bosch reduce storage needs. • Green ammonia cost-competitive if gas price $14/MBtu or higher in 2030. • Levelized costs of ammonia: $756/tonne by 2025 and $659/tonne by 2030. • Synergy between southern hemisphere supply and northern hemisphere demand. Green ammonia has received increasing interest for its potential as an energy carrier in the international trade of renewable power. This paper considers the factors that contribute to producing cost-competitive green ammonia from an exporter's perspective. These factors include renewable resource quality across potential sites, operating modes for off-grid plants, and seasonal complementarity with trade buyers. The study applies a mixed-integer programming model and uses Australia as a case study because of its excellent solar and wind resources, and the potential for synergy between Southern Hemisphere supply and Northern Hemisphere demand. Although renewable resources are unevenly distributed across Australia and present distinct diurnal and seasonal variability, modelling shows that most of the pre-identified hydrogen hubs in each state and territory of Australia can produce cost-competitive green ammonia providing the electrolysis and Haber-Bosch processes are partially flexible to cope with the variability of renewables. Flexible operation reduces energy curtailment and leads to lower storage capacity requirements using batteries or hydrogen storage, which would otherwise increase system costs. In addition, an optimised combination of wind and solar can reduce the magnitude of storage required. Providing that a partially flexible Haber Bosch plant is commercially available, the modelling shows a levelised cost of ammonia (LCOA) of AU$756/tonne and AU$659/tonne in 2025 and 2030, respectively. Based on these results, green ammonia would be cost-competitive with grey ammonia in 2030, given a feedstock natural gas price higher than AU$14/MBtu. For green ammonia to be cost-competitive with grey ammonia, assuming a lower gas price of AU$6/MBtu, a carbon price would need to be in place of at least AU$123/tonne. Given that there is a greater demand for energy in winter concurrent with lower solar power production, there may be opportunities for solar-based Southern Hemisphere suppliers to supply the major industrial regions, most of which are located in the Northern Hemisphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Reforestation of degraded forest lands is vital to sequester greenhouse emissions. • Carbon prices have been modeled for minimum value to incentivize reforestation. • Few studies have provided real-world costs of reforestation. • Farm-level costs and benefits are necessary to encourage farmers to uptake restoration. • Carbon prices will need to be much higher to provide positive returns. Global forest restoration is vital to mitigate climate change. Tropical forests are under the greatest threat from clearing while offering significant potential for restoration. Forest carbon credits through trading schemes have the potential to enable restoration, providing landholders with incentives to restore forests. Impediments to restoration are numerous, with one of the main ones being the unknown costs of forest restoration and uncertain returns from payment schemes, such as carbon trading programs. Many research and modeling papers on the potential of carbon markets to stimulate reforestation in agricultural landscapes rely on general estimates of reforestation. The reality, though, is that the benefits, returns, and break-even points of the reforestation costs and carbon price are highly sensitive to actual costs. Few papers actually investigate the real costs of farm-level restoration. Nearly all recent papers have used modeled scenarios in calculating Net Present Value (NPV), and so estimates of restoration cost and a return from carbon vary widely depending on modeled assumptions. Real data from a demonstration project in the Wet Tropics of Australia are provided in this paper. Three land use scenarios are compared: carbon only, cattle only, and a combination of carbon and cattle using on-ground data for restoration. Not surprisingly, scenarios of the highest carbon prices generate the highest net benefits in both carbon only and mixed carbon and cattle scenarios. A minimum carbon price of AUD$37 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent is required to match income derived from cattle. The current policy environment that rewards the lowest cost abatement runs counter to Australia playing its role in the urgent need to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius and preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incentive schemes and policies play an important role in reducing carbon emissions from electricity generation. This paper investigates designing tax and subsidy incentives towards a reliable and low emission electricity market, using Australia's National Electricity Market as a case study. In this work, a novel framework is proposed to design interactive tax/subsidy incentives on both emission reduction and resource adequacy in competitive electricity markets as a game model. In our model, market participants decide on their capacity expansion/retirement strategies considering the impact of designed incentive schemes on their long-term operation such that the desired levels of emission reduction and fast response generation are achieved in the network. The simulation results for Australia's electricity market during 2017–2052, indicate the necessity of incentive policies, in spite of the cost reduction trajectory for renewable technologies, to reach the emission intensity reduction above 45% in the market by 2052. In 80% emission intensity reduction scenario, the designed incentive schemes highly encourage the investment on synchronous renewables, +17 GW, storage technologies, +15.7 GW, and transmission lines, +1.6 GW, to support high additional penetration of Variable Renewable Energy, wind and solar, +39 GW, which paves the way to transition to a green and reliable electricity market. • Our model designs emission abatement and reliability schemes in electricity markets. • The schemes are designed considering the strategic behaviour of market players. • The designed emission policies must be dynamic due to outage of aging generators. • Reliability schemes are taken into account to enable high penetration of renewables. • Emission abatement schemes might lower the average prices at some years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]