Energy system design and operation of hydrogen fuelled ships
Foivos Mylonopoulos (TU Delft - Transport Engineering and Logistics)
H. Polinder – Promotor (TU Delft - Sustainable Drive and Energy System)
A. Coraddu – Promotor (TU Delft - Sustainable Drive and Energy System)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
The maritime sector faces growing pressure to decarbonize, driven by increasingly stringent regulations and long-term climate targets. Among zero-emission propulsion options, hydrogen fuel cell–battery-electric systems have emerged as promising solutions, particularly for short-sea shipping. However, their large-scale adoption remains limited due to high fuel and investment costs, insufficient infrastructure, safety considerations, and significant uncertainty regarding lifetime economic performance.
A key challenge in hydrogen-fuelled ship design is the strong coupling between energy system sizing, operational strategies, and external influences such as weather and market conditions. In the literature, these aspects are often treated separately, focusing either on control of fixed designs or on system sizing under simplified operating assumptions, which can lead to economically suboptimal or operationally infeasible solutions. This thesis addresses this gap by developing a unified design-operation optimization framework that minimizes lifetime cost while accounting for technical, operational, and regulatory constraints under realistic operating conditions.
This thesis focuses on conceptually retrofitted cargo vessels, where conventional diesel propulsion is replaced by a fuel cell-battery electric configuration. Lifetime performance is evaluated using a techno-economic framework based on a Net Present Value (NPV)-based cost formulation, which captures capital expenses, operational costs, component degradation, and replacement over the remaining service life of the vessel. The framework is used to compare the diesel baseline and hydrogen retrofitted configurations in terms of system design and lifetime cost under consistent operational assumptions....