Insights into decision-making for offshore green hydrogen infrastructure developments

Green hydrogen is a key element that has the potential to play a critical role in the global pursuit of a resilient and sustainable future. However, like other energy production methods, hydrogen comes with challenges, including high costs and safety concerns across its entire value chain. To overcome these, low-cost productions are required along with a promised market. Offshore renewables have an enormous potential to facilitate green hydrogen production on a large scale. Their plummeting cost, technological advances, and rising cost of carbon pave a pathway where green hydrogen can be cost-competitive against fossil-fuel-based hydrogen. Offshore industries, including oil and gas, aquaculture, and shipping, are looking for cleaner energy solutions to decarbonize their systems/operations and can serve as a substantial market. Offshore industrial nexus, moreover, can assist the production, storage, and transmission of green hydrogen through infrastructure sharing and logistical support. The development of offshore green hydrogen production facilities is in its infancy and requires a deeper insight into the key elements that govern decision-making during their life-cycle. This includes the parameters that reflect the performance of hydrogen technology with technical, socio-political, financial, and environmental considerations. Therefore, this study provides critical insight into the influential factors discovered through a comprehensive analysis that governs the development of an offshore green hydrogen system. Insights are also fed into the requirements for modelling and analysis of these factors, considering the synergy of hydrogen production with the offshore industries, coastal hydrogen hub and onshore energy demand. The results of this critical review will assist the researchers and developers in establishing and executing an effective framework for offshore site selection in largely uncertain and hazardous ocean environments. Overall, the study will facilitate the stakeholders and researchers in developing decision-making tools to ensure sustainable and safe offshore green hydrogen facilities.