Techno-economic analysis of renewable fuels for ships carrying bulk cargo in Europe

Fossil marine fuels need to be substituted by renewable energy carriers to meet global climate targets. However, a deeper understanding of the technological suitability of carbon-neutral fuels at fleet level is needed. Here we provide a first-order assessment of the techno-economic suitability of hydrogen, ammonia, methane, methanol and diesel—all produced from renewable electricity—to power Europe’s shipping fleet carrying bulk cargo. We compared gravimetric energy density constraints on current operations, the electricity demand for fuel production and total costs of ownership, and found that over 93% of the transport work can be covered with all fuel options when a reduced cargo capacity of less than 3% is allowed for. Compared with Europe’s electricity consumption in 2019, carbon-neutral bulk shipping demands an additional 4–8% thereof. Ammonia emerges as one of the most balanced carbon-free fuels and methanol as one of the most balanced carbonaceous fuels. Using such carbon-neutral fuels could increase the total costs of ownership by a factor of 2–6 in 2030 compared with those of conventional operations.