Comprehensive Sustainability Evaluation Concept for Offshore Green Hydrogen from Wind Farms

Green hydrogen production, distribution and use is seen as a central element of a carbon-neutral economy. Specifically, the establishment of offshore green hydrogen production facilities amidst wind energy parks is seen as a promising concept for European countries like Germany, which documented the first offshore wind energy hydrogen production during 2023 and plans significant production volume extensions in this regard. Yet, such green hydrogen manufacturing and distribution concepts are not evaluated in a comprehensive sustainability perspective. In order to avoid unintended sustainability effects, an ex-ante evaluation regarding the three triple bottom line perspectives of environmental, economic and social sustainability is advisable. As especially offshore green hydrogen production and transportation concepts are completely new, even the evaluation concept to be used for such a required comprehensive sustainability check is largely missing. Although dedicated evaluation and decision support methods in the fields of LCA and SLCA are available for sustainability evaluation issues, the question of selecting matching method frameworks and relevant evaluation categories for a future offshore-based green hydrogen supply chain is yet to be answered. This contribution is provided by this paper in a conceptual approach based on existing method sets and analytical results for neighboring application fields like solar or biogas green hydrogen production and distribution.