Development of “green” hydrogen energy in the European part of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The development of hydrogen energy in the Russian Federation has been interfered by a number of serious problems and issues connected with the innovative nature of this sector of economics. The problems include lack of experience in production, storage and transportation of “green” hydrogen. The development results within the Concept for the development of hydrogen energy present the Russian Federation as the largest exporter of hydrogen by 2050. The Concept estimates the future hydrogen production volumes to be as high as 200,000 tons by 2024, from 2 to 12 million ton by 2035 and from 15 to 50 million ton by 2050. Currently, there are projects on producing “green” hydrogen through electrolysis of water at hydroelectric stations. Moreover, there are different methods of hydrogen storage used in the Russian Federation. However, there is no transportation infrastructure for “green” hydrogen. Therefore, in order to build up transportation infrastructure the authors use economic calculations to consider and actualize the routes for transportation of the “green” hydrogen. To evaluate the profitability the infrastructure and the routes were created for transporting the “green” hydrogen as the export raw material produced in the Niznekamskya HES (Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia) to the EU countries. The authors consider waterways, land routes and pipelines for delivering the “green hydrogen” as the transportation facilities and the cargo routes. They evaluate the indicators which characterize the “green” hydrogen transportation by means of waterway, railway and automobile transport and pipelines. The authors estimate the comparative payback periods for the hydrogen transportation by means of waterway, railway and automobile transport and pipelines along their main routes according to the hydrogen market price.