The objective of the BEHYOND project is to develop an engineering conceptual solution and its sub-systems that support the technical-economic model and competitiveness studies of a modular solution to produce hydrogen in large-scale from offshore wind energy.
This project gathers an experienced team from the global offshore engineering leader TechnipFMC and its subsidiary LusoTechnip Engenharia, the Portuguese energy utility EDP (EDP NEW R&D as the project coordinator and EDP Inovação as the project manager), the research centers CEiiA–Engineering and Product Development and WavEC-Offshore Renewables, and the Norwegian University USN, reinforcing the collaboration between Portugal and Norway.
An innovative system will be created to face the increasing challenges of the energy sector, namely the growth of renewables penetration in the power system, which are highly intermittent and dependent on market-based revenues. BEHYOND offers a solution to wind farm owners by increasing the competitiveness of offshore wind tenders, ensuring access to a new, affordable, reliable and sustainable energy carrier (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – UNSDG 7). Increasing the share of hydrogen in the final energy demand is fundamental to enlarge the low-carbon energy sources share in the global energy mix by decarbonizing hard-to-abate applications and promoting environmental sustainability.
BEHYOND is well aligned with the goals of the EEA and Norway Grants not only because the project will strenghthen the cooperation between Portugal and Norway, but also because it will ultimately reduce the social and economic disparities in Europe, in this case by developing an emerging and highly promising technology for the production of Renewable Hydrogen as an enabler of the decarbonization of the economy with entities from Portugal.
- Strategic Market Assessment – A market assessment will be undertaken to frame and analyse the conditions and drivers necessary to frame the development of the offshore wind-to-hydrogen sector. The market analysis will focus on identifying different regions where offshore wind-to-hydrogen is more prone to be developed. Starting from the geographies with higher potential, the hydrogen market and openness of key sectors to adopt hydrogen will be characterized, including the main stakeholders and development framework.
- Operational Models and Business Cases – Different operational models will be investigated, considering not only various production possibilities, in terms of energy sourcing and management strategies, but also the availability and characteristics of different hydrogen offloading systems. A techno-economical model will be developed in order to provide estimations for the different operational models and associated business cases.
- System definition – A complete system solution for offshore hydrogen production and export is to be developed to a conceptual level. The technical work will be initiated by a system definition phase where all the main input data, boundary conditions and assumptions are collected and agreed upon. An evaluation about the requirements with regards to scalability, modularization and standardization is to be performed as part of the system definition. Thereafter several global architecture solutions are mapped and evaluated against the requirements, and the most promising one(s) will form the basis for further technical work.
- Hydrogen production module design – The engineering work necessary to achieve a conceptual solution for an offshore hydrogen production module will be performed focusing on the definition of the process, power and control systems, i.e the «topside», while the floating sub-structure is covered in WP5. Integrating the topside into a wind turbine structure will be evaluated on a high level.
- Infrastructure design – A mechanical infrastructure needs to be developed on a concept level in order to support the hydrogen production module. This infrastructure comprises not only the substructure where most of the control subsystems need to be installed, but also the adjacent subsystems such as mooring, piping and riser subsystems to allow for fuel storage and transportation. The development of the structures, even at a concept level, will account with the adequate accessibility for maintenance and repair.
- Risk assessment towards bankability and industrialization – This activity aims to contribute to the “bankability” of the offshore wind-to-hydrogen solution under development by assessing the industrial readiness level across the supply chain and implementing a risk management strategy able to identify, quantify and mitigate the risks inherent to all the development phases. An innovation roadmap aiming at future developments will also be created where innovation needs will be identified.
- Project Management – Ensure that the project progresses according to the plan, not only from a technical perspective but also from an administrative perspective.
- Exploitation and Dissemination – Ensure the maximization of the impact in each partners’ medium to long-term business strategy and develop an exploitation plan for the products and services deriving from BEHYOND.