ILF Consulting Engineers (ILF) wants to shape a sustainable future by using broad in-house engineering expertise to support green hydrogen-based solutions for the coverage of the worldwide rising energy demand. One corner stone of this target is to enable transport and distribution of green hydrogen to different sectors and countries. For large transport volumes, hydrogen transport via pipeline represents an economically promising alternative, which is elaborated in this paper as an option to supply green hydrogen to central Europe from regions with beneficial renewable energy sources such as the MENA region.

In this work an analysis of a possible design and relevant costs for a new hydrogen pipeline is developed considering the transport route, height profile and transport capacity. As a result the hydraulic profile for the chosen route is generated, which allows to decide on the number and distribution of compressor stations along the transport route. Based on the variation of pipeline diameter, maximum pressure and maximum pressure difference, the optimum design is determined with regards to the lowest transport costs for hydrogen with investment costs as well as operating costs of the pipeline included. For an exemplary case of hydrogen transport via pipeline from Morocco to the Ruhr area in Germany, the transport cost for hydrogen per kilogram is assessed while taking into account specific hydrogen related challenges such as choice of material, increased energy consumption for compression as well as the choice of compressors. The results show, that the transport costs for hydrogen via pipeline are approximately less than half as for ship transport of liquid hydrogen (LH2) for distances of around 2500 km. However at transport distances of about 6000 km, the ship transport of liquid hydrogen appears as the more cost-effective transport option.