Martin Bergström, Moritz Braun, Bartosz Skobiej, Arto Niemi, Florian Schmid, Frank Roland, Sören Ehlers, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Hamburg
Green hydrogen is seen as an important tool to decarbonise energy-intensive industries, such as heavy industry, shipping and aviation. Consequently, its demand is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. Because many highly industrialised and populated regions of the world, such as North-West Europe, have limited possibilities to increase their local onshore production of green hydrogen, it is expected that a significant number of new offshore production facilities will be needed in addition to increased imports. This is particularly true for Germany, where green hydrogen produced from offshore wind is expected to become of great strategic importance. The expansion of offshore production of green hydrogen will naturally also require new transport infrastructure including both subsea pipelines and maritime transport infrastructure. As there is a general lack of hydrogen pipelines in Germany, and as there are at the same time significant political, legal and other challenges to the construction of new land-based pipelines, especially through densely populated areas, we expect a growing demand for non-pipeline transport options for transportation within Germany. In practice, any such option involves hydrogen carrier ships and port-based infrastructure, such as loading and unloading systems and intermediate port-based storages. Due to the increased political tension between Russia and the West, and given recent events in the Baltic Sea, issues related to the physical security and resilience of offshore installations have become highly relevant and important. Potential measures to increase the security and resilience of offshore infrastructure include the utilisation of existing protection systems, such as cameras, sonars, radars and drones, as well as measures to increase system resilience, such as alternative transport routes and means. Nevertheless, at present, there are numerous open questions regarding the assurance of the safety and resilience of offshore installations, due to their remoteness and accessibility, as well as general challenges related to the surveillance of sea areas. Against this background, the aim of this study is, firstly, to identify potential physical security risks and related disruption scenarios, and to try to assess the consequences in terms of disruption to production and/or distribution. Secondly, the study aims to identify measures to mitigate and to recover from the consequences, i.e. measures to increase the level of resilience. The study will be conducted as a case study involving the production of green hydrogen at an assumed offshore installation in the North Sea. Hydrogen produced at the facility is first transported via pipeline to an intermediate port-based terminal in Germany, from where it is further transported to another German location by ship. In order to be able to consider various time-dependent and stochastic factors, we analyse the transport system using discrete event simulation. Based on the results, recommended measures for enhanced safety and resilience are defined.