Implementing Hydrogen in Hard-to-Abate Industries: Sustainabiity Assessment of Energy Transition Pathways

The decarbonization of hard-to-abate industries represents a complex challenge due to the obvious advantages that fossil fuels offer in these sectors. In some cases, hydrogen emerges as one of the possible solutions, providing a viable alternative where combustion processes are needed to generate high-temperature heat. A notable example in this regard is the ceramics industry, and in this study, various scenarios for implementing green hydrogen were defined and analyzed in a case study involving three ceramic companies. To this end, a procedure was developed to quantitatively assess the feasibility and sustainability of different scenarios for replacing natural gas with green hydrogen. After the definition and the preliminary configuration of these scenarios, a set of indicators was calculated to evaluate the performance from multiple perspectives: technological, economic, environmental, and safety-related. These KPIs were subsequently normalized and aggregated into a single index to compare the various alternatives. For this purpose, several aggregation approaches were also adopted to verify how the relative weight of the different sustainability domains influences the final ranking. The robustness of the results was checked through a sensitivity analysis, preliminary to a Monte Carlo analysis required to assess how uncertainties in some parameters affect the choice of the best hydrogen implementation strategy. Finally, an attempt was made to extend the methodology beyond the boundaries of the case study. The results of the work suggest that the best solution strongly depends on which aspect of sustainability is prioritized and that updated and precise parameters are necessary to obtain clear and reliable conclusions, which are usually available in a more advanced project phase. Nonetheless, the methodology proved effective in highlighting the main advantages and disadvantages of each decarbonization scenario.