From MENA to Europe: System-optimal hydrogen and derivative imports under finance and infrastructure constraints

Kurzfassung

Decarbonising the European energy system is likely to require large-scale imports of renewable hydrogen and synthetic fuels, for which the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is a prime candidate supplier due to its resource endowment and proximity. This thesis provides a system-level techno-economic assessment of long-term (2030-2050) hydrogen and synfuel trade between the European Union (EU) and MENA, asking what cost-optimal trade architecture emerges and how it is shaped by cross-regional infrastructure constraints and country-specific financing conditions. A brownfield, spatially explicit energy-system optimisation model is extended to couple the EU and MENA via existing and expandable electricity and gas networks, a broad portfolio of hydrogen and synfuel pathways (including DACbased synthetic methane and Fischer-Tropsch fuels), and perfect-foresight optimisation for 2030, 2040 and 2050. The scenario set comprises a baseline with uniform financing and unconstrained infrastructure (BASE), a no-trade case (AUTARKY), two transport variants with delayed or absent cross-regional hydrogen pipelines (TRANS_delay, TRANS_no_pipeline), and a WACC case with differentiated costs of capital in MENA. Within the explored scenario space, the cost-optimal configuration under uniform financing and unconstrained infrastructure is MENA-centred: renewable generation and conversion capacity shift towards MENA, while Europe remains structurally import-dependent for hydrogen, synthetic methane and Fischer-Tropsch fuels. Hydrogen primarily redistributes energy within and between regions, FT fuels serve as long-distance carriers and synthetic methane provides large-scale seasonal flexibility via cavern storage. Removing cross-regional molecular trade demonstrates the technical feasibility of European self-sufficiency, albeit at a substantially higher cost, whereas infrastructure constraints that delay or remove hydrogen pipelines reduce trade volumes and alter the carrier mix without eliminating the economic rationale for EU-MENA exchange. Differentiated, higher costs of capital in MENA reduce export volumes, concentrate investment in a few low-risk exporters, reshore parts of the supply chain to Europe and yield the highest total system costs of all variants, underscoring financing conditions as a critical driver of who trades, with whom and at what cost. Methodologically, the thesis demonstrates the value of combining a brownfield network representation, a broad carrier portfolio and regionally differentiated financing assumptions in an integrated energy-system model, and concludes that an EU-MENA hydrogen and synfuel partnership is structurally attractive but highly sensitive to infrastructure development and the management of financing risk.