Sjlasx There was a briefing from the EU Transport & Environment in Dec 2020 - "Decarbonizing the EU’s transport sector with renewable electricity and electrofuels". That is, the study is assessing the clean electricity/energy requirements of a decarbonized transport sector.....
Its a 26 page briefing, yes I did say briefing....
Below is the executive summary, to give you a feel for what's involved in the briefing;
The scale of decarbonizing transport using renewable electricity is challenging, but the EU is well positioned to meet that challenge : the renewables potential in the EU far outstrips future demand. The EU could meet the transport sector’s demand for the direct use of renewable electricity, the electrofuels produced from renewable sources in sectors like shipping and aviation where direct use of electricity is not feasible as well as meet the electricity and hydrogen demand in other sectors like power and industry.
In the next decade, there is a window of opportunity for European industry to become leaders in developing and driving down the costs of the technologies involved in producing renewables-based hydrogen and other electrofuels. Currently, the major costs involved in transporting hydrogen over longer distances via ships (by liquefaction or conversion into ammonia) creates an opportunity for production in the EU or importing it via pipeline from its immediate neighborhood.
But for the EU to live up to this challenge, there is no scope to use renewable electricity inefficiently. Enabling the use of e.g. synthetic hydrocarbons in road transport, where technical alternatives such as the direct use of electricity exist, comes with a huge energy penalty and risks derailing the entire decarbonization effort.
The study underpinning this briefing outlined three scenarios, which emphasize different energy carriers for different transport modes. A base case scenario relying on direct electrification of all transport whenever feasible, a scenario with a greater reliance on hydrogen and a scenario with more synthetic hydrocarbons. While the scenario’s assumptions are quite similar (e.g. all assume that at least 80% of all cars, vans and trucks under 16 tonnes will be battery electric), the results show that relatively small variations in the use of hydrogen and efuels can add up to large differences in terms of the renewable energy that will need to be produced.
For the EU27, the base case scenario shows that the decarbonisation of transport will require 2414 TWh of renewable electricity in 2050. To give a sense of scale, this would be the equivalent of 305 offshore wind farms with 2 GW capacity (or the equivalent of about 87,000 wind turbines of 7MW) to be deployed over the next 30 years.
The ‘higher hydrogen’ scenario would require about 15% more renewable electricity or a total of 2797 TWh. Given the limited number of fuel cell vehicles currently on the market, this scenario assumes a relatively small share of hydrogen - 10% for cars, vans and trucks, but a bigger 50% share for buses and heavy-duty trucks. A greater role for fuel cell vehicles than assumed in this scenario would of course increase the renewable electricity well beyond the 15%.
The ‘higher synthetic hydrocarbon’ scenario - using only synthetic hydrocarbons in shipping and a small share in road transport - would require 40% more renewable electricity or a total of 3598 TWh.
For example, if 100% of passenger cars were battery-electric, charging them would require 417 TWh in 2050 (just 15% compared to current total electricity demand). Enabling only 10% hydrogen plus 10% of synthetic hydrocarbons in cars would push up demand to 598 TWh or a 36% difference. Similarly, if all trucks over 16 tonnes were battery electric, demand for renewable electricity would be 347 TWh in 2050. Running half of these trucks on fuel cells would increase renewable electricity demand to 506 TWh or a 37% difference.
Prioritising direct electrification over electrofuels in road transport has the added benefit that smart charging of passenger cars as ‘batteries on wheels’ will help reduce the curtailment of high shares of wind and solar on European grids by 2030, potentially reducing the additional renewable electricity needed to charge them by almost 10%. By 2050, this potential could be even greater with a near 100% electrified road fleet and very high shares of renewables across the EU.
These major differences between the three scenarios in terms of the renewables deployment illustrates the importance of efficiency from an energy systems perspective; promoting even a limited use of synthetic hydrocarbons in road transport now will lock the EU’s transport decarbonisation in a pathway that will require a much greater deployment of renewables than necessary. This makes the transition harder to accomplish and could complicate the decarbonisation of the long-distance transport modes like aviation and shipping.
The land use involved in decarbonising transport with renewable electricity helps to bring the size of the challenge to life : delivering the energy needed for the base case scenario will require an area equivalent to 3.4 times the size of Denmark, if offshore wind would supply all of the additional electricity needed to decarbonise the transport sector. The ‘higher hydrogen’ scenario will require 4 times and ‘higher synthetic hydrocarbon’ scenario even 5.1 times the area of Denmark. Lowering the energy demand in the transport sector by promoting public transport, shared vehicle use, modal shift, logistics efficiency and reducing air travel can help to reduce the scale of the challenge.
(20min delay)