Hydrogen in boxes - ISL successfully completes PROVIDE project

The energy transition and the gradual move away from fossil energy sources in Germany require the import of green hydrogen, which can be transported either by pipeline or ship. As hydrogen pipelines will not be available for several years, ship transport is an important alternative. However, there are currently neither transport ships nor transshipment or storage facilities of sufficient scale to import large quantities of hydrogen.

In the PROVIDE project, ISL has investigated another option: special pressurised gas containers that can be loaded with compressed hydrogen and transported across the oceans. This method offers great flexibility, as the hydrogen containers can be transported as "additional cargo" using the existing infrastructure and means of transport for standard containers. Alternatively, there are concepts that provide special transport ships just for hydrogen containers.

The project analysed the technical and regulatory feasibility as well as the economic framework conditions in detail. In addition, logistics concepts and exemplary logistics chains were developed and evaluated. As a result, it can be stated that containerised hydrogen transports are an option to be taken seriously in Europe. Due to the availability of transport containers on the market, they could be realised in the near future. This means that existing hydrogen requirements in Germany that cannot be covered by domestic production capacities could already be met by imports from other production countries.

In this study, various concepts and their potential for the use of hydrogen containers for hydrogen imports are analysed and evaluated with regard to possible implementation.