applied

sciences
Article
Assessing the Carbon Intensity of e-fuels Production in
European Countries: A Temporal Analysis
Romain Besseau * , Nicolae Scarlat, Oliver Hurtig , Vincenzo Motola and Anne Bouter

European Commission, Joint Research Center (JRC), 21027 Ispra, Italy; nicolae.scarlat@ec.europa.eu (N.S.);
vincenzo.motola@ec.europa.eu (V.M.); anne.bouter@ec.europa.eu (A.B.)
* Correspondence: romain.besseau@ec.europa.eu

Abstract: The transport sector heavily relies on the use of fossil fuels, which are causing major
environmental concerns. Solutions relying on the direct or indirect use of electricity through e-
fuel production are emerging to power the transport sector. To ensure environmental benefits
are achieved over this transition, an accurate estimation of the impact of the use of electricity is
needed. This requires a high temporal resolution to capture the high variability of electricity. This
paper presents a previously unseen temporal analysis of the carbon intensity of e-fuels using grid
electricity in countries that are members of the European Network of Transmission System Operators
(ENTSO-E). It also provides an estimation of the potential load factor for producing low-carbon
e-fuels according to the European Union legislative framework. This was achieved by building on
top of the existing EcoDynElec tool to develop EcoDynElec_xr, a python tool enabling—with an hourly
time resolution—the calculation, visualisation, and analysis of the historical time-series of electricity
mixing from the ENTSO-E. The results highlight that, in 2023, very few European countries were
reaching low carbon intensity for electricity that enables the use of grid electricity for the production
of green electrolytic hydrogen. The methodological assumptions consider the consumption of the
electricity mix instead of the production mix, and the considered time step is of paramount importance
and drastically impacts the potential load factor of green hydrogen production. The developed tools
are released under an open-source license to ensure transparency, result reproducibility, and reuse
regarding newer data for other territories or for other purposes.

Citation: Besseau, R.; Scarlat, N.;

Keywords: electricity impact; e-fuels; carbon intensity; ENTSO-E time-series; temporal analysis;
Hurtig, O.; Motola, V.; Bouter, A.
EcoDynElec_xr
Assessing the Carbon Intensity of
e-fuels Production in European
Countries: A Temporal Analysis. Appl.
Sci. 2024, 14, 10299. https://doi.org/
10.3390/app142210299 1. Introduction
In 2022, more than 95% of the final energy used in the transport sector was sourced
Academic Editor: Nikolaos
Koukouzas
from fossil fuels globally [1], illustrating the heavy reliance of the transport sector on fossil
fuels. While this share slightly decreased in the last decades as a result of policies promoting
Received: 25 September 2024 the use of renewable energy [2], fuel consumption in transport followed continuous growth,
Revised: 29 October 2024 with the exception of a brief period during the COVID crisis [3]. As a consequence, the direct
Accepted: 30 October 2024 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the transport sector increased from 5.0 GtCO2 eq in 1990
Published: 8 November 2024
to 8.7 GtCO2 eq in 2019 [4]. This accounts for 23% of global energy-related greenhouse gas
emissions and more than a third when including the impacts of transport infrastructure [4].
In the European Union (EU), the transportation sector is currently the only sector with
Copyright: © 2024 by the authors.
a growing trend in GHG emissions [5]. Increasing the use of renewable and low-carbon
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. energy sources in transport is thus becoming essential to achieve EU carbon neutrality goals.
This article is an open access article In addition to GHG emissions, fossil fuels are also responsible for environmental
distributed under the terms and impacts, from their extraction to their final use in internal combustion engines with local
conditions of the Creative Commons pollutant emissions [6]. Solutions relying on the direct or indirect use of electricity are being
Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// investigated and are emerging as alternatives to power the transport sector. Electricity
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ is expected to play an increasing role in the future of the transport sector [3,4] due to
4.0/). the following:

Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299. https://doi.org/10.3390/app142210299 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci

Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 2 of 21

• The direct use of electricity in battery electric vehicles, electric trains, or other trol-
ley vehicles;
• The indirect use of electricity to produce fuels that require a high amount of electricity as
input, such as hydrogen or hydrogen-derived fuel (the so-called e-fuels or electro-fuels).
Transport solutions that directly use electricity are already being largely deployed and
expanding, while solutions relying on an indirect use of electricity through the use of e-fuels
are at a lower commercial readiness level [7]. Several e-fuels or electro-fuel pathways, also
referred to as power-to-liquid (PtL), are candidates for the production of synthetic fuels
using hydrogen produced through water electrolysis [8–10]. Despite some technological
and nontechnological barriers to deployment, such electro-fuel pathways are promising
options for fuel synthesis, enabling the achievement of high GHG emission savings when
using low-carbon electricity [7,11]; these appear to be essential in terms of meeting the EU
climate targets of the transport sector [12,13].
In order to facilitate the emergence of a hydrogen economy and a low-carbon hydrogen
industrial ecosystem, the EU has developed a comprehensive legislative framework through
the Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001 (RED) [14] that promotes the use of renewable
energy sources across the EU economy. The Renewable Energy Directive (EU) 2023/2413
(the so-called RED III) [15] has increased the level of ambition in terms of the use of
renewable energy in the EU and the use of renewables in transport by 2030. Member States
have the possibility to choose between either a binding target of a 14.5% reduction in GHG
intensity in transport from the use of renewables or a binding share of at least 29% of
renewables in the final consumption of energy in the transport sector. The Directive also
sets a binding combined subtarget of 5.5% for the use of advanced biofuels and renewable
fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBO), i.e., renewable hydrogen or derived synthetic fuels
to be used in the transport sector. Within this target, there is a minimum requirement of a
share of 1% of RFNBOs in the energy supplied to the transport sector in 2030.
Directive 2018/2001 (RED II) [14] defined RFNBO as fuels produced from renew-
able energy and requires greenhouse gas emissions savings from their use of at least 70%
compared to the fossil fuel comparator of 94 gCO2 eq/MJ. Two delegated regulations on
RFNBOs set out the detailed rules for their production and the methodology for calculating
emissions savings: EU 2023/1184 [16] and EU 2023/1185 [17]. The corresponding frame-
work, represented in Figure 1, introduces the three essential pillars aiming at ensuring that
hydrogen is effectively produced from low-carbon electricity:
• Additionality: The aim is to stimulate the deployment of new renewable electricity
generation capacities and avoid competition with other uses of renewable electricity;
• Temporal correlation: The aim is that RFNBO production takes place at times when
electricity is produced
• Geographical correlation: The aim is that RFNBO production takes place in grid areas
where renewable electricity is produced.
The criteria for RFNBO production make sense from a GHG emissions perspective by
using additional electricity when and where it is available. The regulation EU 2023/1184
proposed a flexible application of the criterion to temporal correlation in the initial phase.
From 1 January 2030, the temporal correlation condition requires the production of the RFNBO
during the same 1-h period as the renewable electricity production. Until 1 January 2030,
the temporal correlation condition shall be considered complied with if RFNBO is produced
during the same calendar month as the renewable electricity. Regulation EU 2023/1185 sets
the methodology to assess and calculate the life cycle GHG emissions savings.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 3 of 21

Figure 1. Legislative European framework for low-carbon hydrogen production [18].

These two regulations are part of a wider context where hydrogen and derived fuels
are expected to become one of the main pillars of the EU decarbonisation strategy as a
clean solution for mobility, power generation, and industrial applications, according to the
European Green Deal (EGD) [19]. In order to promote renewable hydrogen production,
the European Commission adopted “A hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe” in
2020 [20] by setting targets for the installation of at least 6 GW of electrolysers powered
by renewables in the EU by 2024 and 40 GW by 2030. The EU also recently proposed the
REPowerEU plan [21] for rapidly reducing the dependence of the EU on fossil fuels by
accelerating the green energy transition. RePower EU considers renewable hydrogen as
key to replacing natural gas, coal, and oil in hard-to-decarbonise industries and transport.
Thus, hydrogen can be used to replace fossil-based hydrogen for transport and industrial
processes and new industrial products, such as green fertilisers and steel. REPowerEU
proposed a target of producing 10 Mt of hydrogen using electrolysis within the EU, which
we expect to be equivalent to 60 to 70 GW of electrolysis capacity that has to be installed
in the EU by 2030; another 10 Mt of renewable hydrogen will have to be imported by the
EU in 2030, according to REPower EU. Hydrogen can be used to produce liquid synthetic
kerosene or other synthetic fuels to decarbonise the aviation and maritime sectors, in
addition to other uses.
While technological solutions are emerging, the European legislative framework
requires the saving of at least 70% of GHG emissions to avoid a simple shift of transport-
related pollution from fossil-based internal combustion engines to power plants generating
the electricity used for e-fuel production. Even though electric, hydrogen or e-fuel vehicles
are sometimes promoted as zero-emission or climate-neutral by considering only tailpipe
emissions, the production of both the vehicles and the energy used to power them is not
burden-free [22,23]. This is why performing a life cycle analysis (LCA) and a systemic
analysis [24–26] is necessary to ensure that the environmental impact is effectively reduced
and not simply shifted to another stage of the system or another environmental impact [22].
Many LCAs of electric, hydrogen, or e-fueled vehicles already exist. Reviews and
meta-analyses based on those numerous publications highlight how determinant the
impact of the electricity used is on the environmental footprint [27–29]. Alongside this,
other papers have focused on assessing the impact of the electricity consumed and not
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 4 of 21

produced. Few papers provide details on the carbon intensity of used electricity, such
as Scarlat et al. [30], who considered annual data for electricity production and trade and
provided the carbon intensities of electricity produced and consumed as well. The study
from Tranberg et al. [31] makes use of hourly data for carbon accounting and confirms that
the carbon intensity of electricity consumed in a country can significantly differ from the
carbon intensity of the produced electricity. While studies regularly neglect greenhouse
gas emissions associated with e-fuels when produced from renewable electricity [32], other
studies [30] consider combustion emissions, upstream and downstream emissions, and
also the emissions from the manufacture of equipment, e.g., including GHG emissions
from renewable electricity. Thus, there is an essential need for an integrated method
that is consistent with the existing European legislative framework; this would provide
an accurate estimation of the environmental impact of the electricity used to power the
transport sector (at the right time resolution) to correctly inform decision-making [33,34].
The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated method using the associated
Python tool to assess the carbon intensity of electricity used, directly or indirectly, in the
transportation sector. This method relies on the data from the European Network of
Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) to provide a comprehensive and retrospective
analysis of the historical carbon intensity of produced and consumed electricity with an
hourly time resolution for each member country of ENTSO-E. The consumed electricity is
calculated using the exchange data between countries and the tracking algorithm presented
by Tranberg et al. [31] and implemented in the Ecodynelec tool [35]. By building on top of
this, we developed EcoDynElec_xr, which contains some improvements over its previous
version to make its use easier, less prone to mistakes, and more efficient. Section 2 details
the step-by-step approach followed, relying on the improved tool to calculate a time-series
of the carbon footprint of electricity. The obtained time-series of carbon intensities was
then used to propose a retrospective statistical analysis of the potential load factor of
hydrogen (or derived fuels) under the European Union’s legislative framework. Those
results are presented and discussed for e-hydrogen, as it is a necessary intermediary step
for other e-fuels that can be derived from it; however, the discussion can be generalised
to the e-fuels mentioned in Section 3. This results section discusses the importance of
key methodological assumptions, such as considering the production or consumption of
electricity mix and the chosen time scale for the analysis. Finally, Section 4 outlines the
conditions for producing low-carbon e-fuels and their impact on economic performance.
It emphasizes the importance of considering the outcomes of this work in future studies
related to the environmental footprint of e-fuels or LCAs of other electro-intensive products
that require accurate and dynamic assessments of electricity impacts.

2. Material & Methods

2.1. Methodological Framework Overview
Figure 2 represents the approach to assess the greenhouse gas emissions from e-fuel
production. The e-fuel can be e-H2 , the simplest form of e-fuel, or any synthetic fuel
derived from it. As the last steps are optional, dashed arrows were used in Figure 2.
When an e-fuel is derived from H2 , the GHG emissions are calculated as the sum of
emissions from H2 production and from all other inputs, such as the energy required for
the final transformation or emissions from carbon capture. However, the scope of this
paper covers H2 production only, while the GHG emissions from all other potential e-fuels
can be calculated by expanding the boundaries to cover all subsequent conversion steps.
Although further transformation steps induce additional emissions and losses, the effects
of H2 production can be generalised to other e-fuels since the carbon intensity of electricity
has the highest impact on their production.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 5 of 21

Figure 2. Approach for assessing the carbon intensity of hydrogen production.

The GHG emissions of hydrogen are calculated from the GHG emissions associated
with electricity used for hydrogen production. The amount of electricity consumed is di-
rectly calculated considering the efficiency of water electrolysis. The thermodynamic limit
for dissociating water at ambient temperature through electrolysis is around 40 kWh/kgH2 .
For low-temperature electrolysis, around 50 to 55 kWh of electricity is needed to produce
1 kg of hydrogen. The typical electrolysis efficiency ranges from about 60% for proton
exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers to 65 % for alkaline electrolysers [36–38]. Consider-
ing the potential future improvements in terms of efficiency, this value of 65% is considered
by default in the later calculations in this paper. One can easily adjust this parameter in the
code and generate all the graphs considering other electrolyser efficiency values.
Previous studies highlighted the fact that the carbon intensity of H2 is dominated by
the impact of electricity used [39] and the impact of the equipment and infrastructure can be
neglected; only emissions related to the use of electricity for H2 production are considered
in the scope of this work. In this paper, the carbon intensity of electricity is calculated
as the electricity mix multiplied by the emission factors of each electricity source. While
emission factors exclude emissions related to equipment and infrastructure, they include
both combustion emissions and upstream emissions related to fuel supply (extraction,
transport, and refining for fossil fuels and enrichment for nuclear fuel).
The calculations were made for the production mix of each country member of ENTSO-E,
listed in Appendix A, at 1-h resolution using the ENTSO-E production data, and then
for the tracked consumption mix calculated based on the production and exchange of
ENTSO-E data. The most recent ENTSO-E data available (for the year 2023) were used. By
using the tracking algorithm [31] implemented in the EcoDynElec tool [35], it is possible to
obtain the tracked electricity consumption mix. The algorithm was re-implemented in the
developed EcoDynElec_xr tool. With the assumption that H2 electrolysis uses electricity at a
high-voltage level, as expected for a Gigawatt scale project, the calculations considered only
the losses after transport, based on the grid loss data sourced from the EUROSTAT dataset
NRG_CB_E. Those transport losses referred to the difference between the fed-in (generation)
electricity at a high-voltage grid and the electricity delivered to distributors. The tool also
enables the inclusion of the grid distribution losses on top of the transport losses in the
case where an electrolyser is connected to a lower voltage grid. The use of the EUROSTAT
data [40] enables the calculation of average annual grid losses, which is a simplification
in the calculation of the hourly carbon intensity of electricity. The emission factors per
unit of electricity produced were calculated by considering power plant efficiency for each
country and each type of fuel input based on the EUROSTAT dataset NRG_BAL_C; this
determines the amount of primary energy needed to produce electricity. The most recent
available EUROSTAT data, corresponding to the year 2022, were used. This enables the
calculation of the average annual plant efficiency, which is assumed to be constant over
the year, which is a simplification in the calculations. Indeed, the efficiency varies over the
year, especially for plants generating both heat and power if the heat is not or less used
during the warm season [41]. Following the approach presented in Figure 2, it is possible
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 6 of 21

to calculate the carbon intensity with a time resolution of 1 h. For some graphics, the data
were later resampled at a daily time resolution, only for display reasons. Moreover, in order
to test the sensitivity of the assessed carbon intensity, the calculations were also carried
out by down-sampling the hourly data for the calculation of carbon intensity at a lower
time resolution.

2.2. Methodological Implementation and Execution

This subsection presents the steps involved in the calculation of the time-series of the
carbon intensity of electricity produced and consumed. Some graphics, corresponding only
to the input data, are presented in this section to help the reader visualise and understand
the steps of the method. The graphics corresponding to the output data of this work are
presented and discussed in the Results section. The structure of this section is strongly
linked to that of the Jupyter Notebook, which the reader can refer to to reproduce the work
or use for other purposes. The whole code is available on github. For this work, a new
python library, named EcoDynElec_xr was developed and implemented in the tracking
algorithm behind [31]. It relies on the previous library EcoDynElec [35] to download the
ENTSO-E data. Even though this EcoDynElec tool was developed in the context of electricity
consumption in buildings, the tool is not sector-specific, and its application to the transport
sector is relevant. The EcoDynElec_xr tool enables the calculation and analysis of the
historical time-series of electricity mix published by the European Network of Transmission
System Operators (ENTSO-E). By making use of this tool, we downloaded, calculated,
and visualised the time-series of carbon footprint for both the electricity produced and
consumed in each country member of the ENTSO-E with an hourly time resolution. Then,
a new data structure was used to make the code more efficient and readable by using the
xarray datasets structure and their explicit, labelled dimensions. Such a structure is fully
adapted to manipulate the multidimensional data with explicit names for all dimensions.
The tracking mix algorithm involved in the calculation was also completely re-implemented
using the pandas dataframe structure to allow for data manipulation using explicit index
and column names instead of numbered indexes that are more prone to mistakes and are
less readable. Some grouping and visualsation features were added to allow for data quality
checks and results analysis. Finally, a part of the previous code specific to Switzerland was
removed to keep ENSTO-E as the only source of electricity data and avoid mixing data of
heterogeneous quality.

2.2.1. Downloading the ENTSO-E Data

The first step consists of downloading the ENTSO-E data. The European Union Mem-
ber States must provide information related to electricity generation, load, transmission,
and balancing for publication through the ENTSO-E Transparency Platform, according
to Regulation (EU) 543/2013 on submission and the publication of data in electricity
markets [42]. The data on the production, trade, and consumption of electricity were down-
loaded for the year 2023. This task can be carried out manually or by using the EcoDynElec
library, as was carried out in the Jupyter Notebook, where more information can be found;
the user needs to create an account to access the ENTSO-E platform and get a token to
download the data. The username and password have to be indicated in the settings.py file.
As this download can take a significant amount of time, if data already exists, the tool asks
for confirmation before downloading them again. The user simply needs to reply “yes” or
“y” when confirmation is asked for.

2.2.2. Formatting the Downloaded Data

When downloaded, the data are contained in large csv files. These files, corresponding
to a 1-month period each, are weighted at around 160 Mb for the generation data and 80 Mb
for the exchange data. One of the reasons why these files are so big is because they also
contain data at the bidding zone level that are not used. TheEcoDynElec_xr tool has some
functions to extract, format, and save the data in a nicely structured and labelled dataset.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 7 of 21

Once formatted, the data can be loaded and accessed much faster than from the csv. The
manipulation of the data is also facilitated and the user can filter data by country, energy
type, and datetime, which are the three dimensions for the generation of the data. A similar
function exists for the exchange data, and data can be filtered based on exporting countries,
importing countries, and datetime.

2.2.3. Checking Data Quality & Missing Values

Figure 3 represents heat maps of the ratio of missing data in the previously down-
loaded and formatted data. The table of country codes and corresponding country names
can be found in Appendix A. With the exception of production data for the United King-
dom, which is no longer a member of the European Union, the overall quality of the data
is really good, with only a few missing data. In many situations, some data seem to be
missing but they simply do not exist. An example is the exchange data between the United
Kingdom (GB) and Denmark (DK). Indeed, when looking at the time-series, we see some
data for the end of December but no data before that date. In this case, the reason is that
GB and DK inaugurated their first electric connection, the so-called Viking Link. The same
situation happens for France and offshore wind production. In France, the first offshore
wind power plant entered into operation in June 2023, so there is no data before this date.
More graphics can be found in the Jupyter Notebook. By default, if there are missing values
for less than 2 h, the values are filled with linearly interpolated values.

Figure 3. Heat map of missing data for the generation and exchange data.

2.2.4. Visualising Data

For exemplification, Figure 4 shows the generation and exchange time-series for Italy.
To represent these data in a visible way, the data have been resampled to the daily mean
values before being plotted. The type of electricity was grouped into a reduced number
of categories: wind, solar, hydro, other renewable, nuclear, fossil, and other, as the initial
dataset has up to 20 energy categories. Those grouping functions were added to the
EcoDynElec_xr tool in order to make graphs that are more readable by limiting the number
of categories. However, the user is able to generate the same plot with the ungrouped data
or can change categories by modifying the grouping dictionary in the energy_grouping.py
file. Figure 4 also shows the exchange data for Italy with the same resampling at the
daily time step. Looking at the scale of the y-axis, the data highlight that Italy imports a
significant amount of electricity mainly from its northern neighbours and is marginally
exporting electricity.
At this stage, we can combine the generation and exchange data together to obtain the
consumption data. However, we cannot yet assess the nature of the electricity imported
or exported, so we cannot know the nature of the electricity mix consumed. To do so, we
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 8 of 21

need to run the tracking algorithm as explained below, but it is first necessary to identify
countries that are directly exchanging electricity between themselves.

Figure 4. Generation and exchange data for Italy.

2.2.5. Neighbours Identification

Before running the tracking algorithm, we need information about the neighbouring
countries that exchange electricity. The previous EcoDynElec tool contained a file that
provided (for each country member of the ENTSO-E) the list of its electrical neighbours.
The new EcoDynElec_xr tool automatically identifies the electrical neighbours by using
the ENTSO-E exchange data. We were thus able to notice, for instance, that the first
electrical connection between GB and DK was recently inaugurated. Such features enable
the tool to deal with the creation of new electrical connections without the need to update
the file with the list of its electrical neighbours. In 2023, ENTSO-E covered 35 countries
that were exchanging electricity between themselves, but some countries also exchanged
electricity with countries outside the ENTSO-E area. Figure 5 presents the share of electricity
exchanged with external neighbours as relating to the total electricity production of ENTSO-
E members. Exports and imports from neighbours of ENTSO-E countries represent around
half a per cent of ENTSO-E production. Moreover, we can see that the exchanges are
rather balanced, as the net import values are even lower, with an order of magnitude of
one per thousand (0.1%) only. In the calculation, the external countries are considered
as one country producing its electricity from gas, as a previous study [30] showed that
the exporting countries to ENTSO-E have an average carbon intensity that is not very
different from the carbon intensity of gas electricity. This assumption can be modified,
but the impact is globally negligible. It can, at most, have a local impact on the carbon
intensity of small neighbouring countries heavily relying on import; a detailed analysis
shows that only Georgia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Latvia have more than 5%
of their consumption sourced from outside ENTSO-E.

Figure 5. Electricity exchange between ENTSO-E countries and external neighbours.

Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 9 of 21

2.2.6. Tracking the Electricity Mix

The mathematical essence of the program lies in this step. From the existing EcoDynElec
tool, the mathematics are strictly unchanged, but the code was re-implemented to use
explicit names to access and manipulate data instead of index numbers that are less readable
and more prone to mistakes. Solving this mathematical problem of countries, directly and
indirectly, importing electricity consists of inverting the Leontieff matrix of an input-output
problem [31,35]. This is carried out using the existing function from the scipy library
instead of using the previously implemented algorithm. More information can be found
in the existing EcoDynElec documentation [43]. This function, called track_mix, has four
parameters that allow the possibility of considering net production (or not), net exchange
between countries (or not), grid loss, and time step. By setting net production to True,
which is the default value, the tool subtracts the electricity consumed by the production
plant from its gross production. Setting net_exchange to False means that export and import
are both considered at a given moment in time. If the user prefers net_trade, he/she should
set this parameter to True. A last parameter enables the user to ignore the grid losses
consider the losses occurring on the transport grid only, or use the distribution losses as
well. The values for losses are sourced from the EUROSTAT dataset NRB_CB_E, which are
automatically downloaded by running the notebook Eurostat.ipynb. It is important to note
that once calculated, we can estimate the nature of the electricity that is consumed in all
countries (if it has been produced with fossil, nuclear, or renewable energy, depending on
grouping); we can also know the countries of production for each of the considered time
steps. It is also important to note that those values result from a model that may differ from
reality, which is obviously more complex. This model aims to give the best possible and
reasonable estimates of the reality, but the reality may differ, considering the impedance
of electric connections between countries. The underlying assumption of the model is
that when given the case of country A exchanging electricity with a country B, there is no
preference over the nature of the electricity exchanged; country A cannot claim specifically
exporting electricity from coal power plants exclusively, even if the power plant is closer to
the border. Exchanges correspond to the mix of countries A and B. Their mix also takes
into account the fact that country B may have, itself, exchanged electricity with another
country (C), which may itself exchange with another country (D), and so on. The second
aspect is that there is no differentiation in the mix exported between neighbours; if country
A exports electricity to countries B and C, the electricity mix exported is identical. Country
A cannot claim to export hydroelectricity to country B and coal electricity to country C,
even if the power plants may be closer or have more direct electrical connections. Those
assumptions (even though reasonable) may differ from the reality, where it could be, in
theory, possible that a power plant is turned on to export production to a determined
country or that the limited transport capacity creates a situation where the mix exported to
different countries would depend on a plant’s location, etc. Thus, the obtained results can
be considered as the best possible estimate of the reality, but the user must be aware that
those values are the outcome of a model with the specific assumptions mentioned above.

2.2.7. Calculating the Impact of Electricity Mix

At this stage of the calculation, we can track which type of electricity is consumed in a
country and in which country the electricity has been produced. To get an estimation of the
carbon intensity, we now simply need to multiply the electricity mix by the emission factor,
which depends on the type of electricity used and the country in which it is produced. Such
multiplication is easy to conduct when using the xarray datastructure; the only condition
is to ensure that the name of countries and the origin of electricity types are identical, as
well as the dimension names. Having conversion efficiency depending on the type of
electricity is obviously necessary, but having it also depend on the country of production is
very relevant when significant differences between countries occur. In the context of the
European legislative framework, emission factors have to be calculated following a specific
method that accounts for the combustion emissions and for the upstream emissions. For
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 10 of 21

the calculations, we have the emission factors per type of fuel input, but these values corre-
spond to the emissions per unit of primary energy and not per final electricity generated.
To convert the tracked electricity data into the primary energy, we need to calculate the
efficiency per type of electricity and per country. In a standard LCA approach, emission
factors could be obtained using LCA databases. Even if the present work focuses on carbon
intensity, it is possible to do the calculation for other impact categories relating, for instance,
to the emissions of particulate matter. Those efficiency values are calculated using the
Eurostat API (application programming interface) [44]. The corresponding code can be
found in the notebook Eurostat.ipynb. There are specific assumptions for allocation; the
allocation of the primary energy for electricity production and for heat in cogeneration was
made by considering alternative heat production with average efficiencies of 85%. More
details can be found in [30]. The data for the year 2022 from Eurostat statistics were used
as the most recent available data, whereas the ENTSO-E data were already available for
the year 2023. However, we expect this to have a very low impact on the results since
the changes in electricity conversion efficiency are low at the scale of a country from one
year to another. The efficiency values were calculated from the IEA data for the countries
having no available data for each type of power plant and fuel input. The preference is
given to Eurostat data over IEA data, as they offer a higher level of detail and are more
rapidly available. The calculated efficiencies are represented in Figure 6, which shows high
variations due to diverse conditions in different countries for different energy sources.

Figure 6. Distribution of national energy efficiency by energy sources.

Once those efficiencies (by fuel input and by country) are calculated, we can easily
calculate the amount of primary energy consumed. These primary energy data then have
to be multiplied by the emission factors and extracted from the Commission Delegated
Regulation (EU) 2023/1185 [17], as represented in Figure 7, to obtain the emissions resulting
from electricity production for each source. Those emission factors include the emissions
of the following greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2 ), methane (CH4 ), and nitrous
oxide (N2 O). These emissions are converted into carbon dioxide equivalent emissions using
the Global Warming Potential (GWP) relative to CO2 over the 100-year time horizon, as
recommended in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report [4].
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 11 of 21

Figure 7. Carbon intensity by electricity sources.

2.2.8. Statistical Analysis Under a Regulatory Limit

Once multiplied by the emission factor, we obtained a time-series of the carbon
intensity of electricity produced or consumed in every country member of the ENTSO-E. In
order to assess the number of hours an electrolyser could operate in each country to produce
low-carbon hydrogen, as is specific in case 2b in Figure 1, we simply test when the time-
series values are below this limit of 18.3 gCO2 eq/MJ (66.0 g CO2 eq/kWh) of electricity that
the electrolyser uses. This value corresponds to the threshold of reducing the GHG intensity
of e-fuel by 70% in comparison to the 94 g CO2 eq/MJ fuel from the fossil fuel comparator
when assuming an efficiency for the electrolyser of 65% (Threshold value calculated based
on that assumed efficiency is indicated with an asterix (*) on Figures 8 and 9). The results
obtained are presented and discussed in the next section.

3. Results & Discussion

This section discusses the results obtained by following the method previously de-
scribed. The temporal variability in carbon intensity for electricity was calculated using a
1-h time-series and then the carbon intensity of hydrogen produced through water elec-
trolysis using grid electricity. For further analysis, the carbon intensity of hydrogen has
been calculated at different time steps, in line with the timing operation of electrolyser
and electricity production or consumption, to assess the impact on the carbon intensity
of e-hydrogen.

3.1. Time-Series of the Electricity Mix and Its Carbon Footprint

The time-series of the electricity mix and its carbon intensity has been produced for all
countries that are members of the ENTSO-E. This covers 35 countries, including all Member
States of the European Union, except Malta and Cyprus, which do not belong to or provide
data for the ENTSO-E. Figure 8 presents the electricity dashboard for Italy, Germany, and
Austria; these were chosen to illustrate interesting and dissimilar cases. For all the other
countries, the figures are available at the following github repository. For display purposes
only, the data represented in the figures were resampled using the daily mean for better
readability of the graph, but all data were calculated with an hourly resolution. The various
subplots present the following:
• The production mix of electricity in the country: The energy categories were
grouped to limit the number of energy categories to represent. Except for the
grouping, those data directly come from the ENTSO-E data and do not involve any
modelling or calculation;
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 12 of 21

• The consumption mix of electricity: Those data are the outcome of the tracking
algorithm. They correspond to the output of a model assuming no preference in
direction and energy type in exchanges between countries (i.e., countries are always
exchanging electricity corresponding to their domestic mix);
• The power balance is also represented;
• The carbon intensity, per unit of electricity, of the production electricity mix. To ease
the readability, the same colours are used as for the above graph;
• The carbon intensity of the consumption electricity mix, per unit of electricity;
• A comparison of the carbon intensity of the production and consumption electricity
mix, as well as the limit for the used grid electricity to produce low-carbon hydrogen.
For the last three graphs, the left axis gives the values in gCO2 eq/kWh while the right
axis gives the values in gCO2 eq/MJ of electricity.
Figure 8 shows that, for instance, Italy consumes nuclear electricity, whereas Italy
does not produce nuclear electricity. This is because Italy imports a significant amount
of electricity from France and Switzerland, where nuclear is significant in the national
electricity mix. The graph for Italy shows that all over the year, Italy is importing electricity
to satisfy a demand that is higher than the national production. In August, the electricity
demand reduced and imports were at the lowest level. When looking at the previous graph,
it also corresponds to the moment when the consumption of nuclear electricity was also at
the lowest level.
Figure 8 also shows that Germany’s consumption mix includes a share of nuclear
and hydroelectricity, which contribute to the reduction in its carbon intensity. It is also
interesting to note that there is seasonality in electricity exchange. Germany exports
electricity to neighbours globally in winter when electricity production relies more on
fossil fuels and has a higher carbon intensity. It also globally imports electricity during
the summer, which reduces the use of fossil fuel plants. These aspects explain why the
consumption mix in Germany has a slightly lower carbon intensity than its production
mix. Even if the share of renewables is high during some periods, the remaining share of
electricity produced from fossil fuels prevents it from reaching the 18 gCO2 eq/MJ limit.
Austria was also chosen for illustration purposes since, in comparison to Italy or
Germany, its electricity mix sometimes reaches the threshold. Figure 8 shows that, in the
absence of production from fossil fuels, the carbon intensity of the electricity production
mix in Austria is very low. However, in winter, when the electricity consumption increases,
Austria becomes a net importer of electricity with high-carbon intensity. During those
periods, this imported consumption of fossil electricity leads to a significant increase in
carbon intensity. As a result, most of the time, the carbon intensity of electricity production
is below the threshold, but it is above the threshold most of the time when considering
electricity consumption.
Annual averaged carbon intensities are presented for all country members of ENTSO-E
in Section 3.2. The statistics on the number of hours below the threshold are presented and
discussed for all countries in Section 3.3. The carbon intensity of the consumption mix is
calculated and displayed for various time steps. The effect of the calculation time step is
discussed in Section 3.4.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 13 of 21

Figure 8. Dashboard of electricity mix and carbon intensities for selected cases.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 14 of 21

3.2. Annual Averaged Carbon Intensity of the Electricity Mix and e-H2
Figure 9A presents the annual averaged carbon intensity of electricity by countries.
This annual average is calculated after calculating the corresponding carbon intensity
for each hour of the year using the method previously described. The black dashed line
corresponds to the threshold for the carbon intensity of electricity used, enabling 70%
of the GHG emissions of e-hydrogen to be saved, assuming a 65% electrolysis efficiency,
compared to the fossil fuel comparator value represented by a red dashed line in Figure 9B.
Countries are sorted by the carbon intensity of their consumption mix. Only a few countries
have an average annual carbon intensity satisfying this criterion. We can also see that some
countries, such as Denmark, have a consumption mix cleaner than the production mix due
to the import of cleaner electricity. On the other hand, some countries have a consumption
mix with a higher carbon intensity than the production mix.

Figure 9. Annual averaged carbon footprint by countries.

Figure 9B presents the carbon intensity of e-hydrogen production using grid electricity
(at high voltage) in each ENTSO-E country. The blue dashed line represents the value
calculated for the production of e-H2 in the EU27, with the exemption of Cyprus and Malta,
which do not provide data to ENTSO-E. The red and blue dashed lines are extremely close,
meaning that producing e-H2 with the electricity mix of the EU27 does not save any GHG
emissions in 2023 compared to the fossil fuel comparator. Out of the 34 countries that are
members of ENTSO-E, only five countries would have been able to produce, when averaged
over the whole year, e-H2 complying with the 70% GHG emission threshold, 13 would
still reach a lower carbon intensity than the fossil fuel comparator without reaching the
70% savings, and 16 would produce e-H2 with a higher carbon intensity than fossil fuels.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 15 of 21

Such a result is expected as long as a significant share of electricity is produced by burning

fossil fuels.

3.3. Statistical Analysis of Potential Load Factor of Low-Carbon H2

As presented in the introduction, the European legislative framework sets a threshold
for the use of grid electricity for hydrogen production through water electrolysis, achieving
a GHG emission reduction of at least 70%. Assuming an electrolysis efficiency of 65%,
the corresponding limit for the carbon intensity of electricity used is 18.3 gCO2 eq/MJ of
electricity. Relying on the previously presented carbon intensity time-series, we retrospec-
tively calculated the potential load factor that could be achieved while respecting this limit
for the year 2023 (e.g., how many hours can the electrolysis operate in a year to produce
low-carbon hydrogen), which is shown in Figure 10. To reveal the impact of the produced
versus consumed electricity, this figure shows the impacts of the type of electricity consid-
ered in the calculations on the load factor. We first see that many countries are never able to
reach the limit. For the countries able to reach this limit, many are reaching it for a limited
number of hours per year. There are, finally, a low number of countries that have a carbon
intensity of the production mix below this limit for an important number of hours a year.
However, when looking at the consumption mix and not the production mix, the potential
load factor is reduced for most of them; Luxembourg is an extreme case because the carbon
intensity of the production mix, mainly relying on hydropower, is often below the limit,
whereas the consumption mix, involving the significant import of fossil-based electricity,
is rarely lower. Denmark and Finland are the only countries performing better with their
consumption mix due to imports of low-carbon electricity from Sweden and Norway.

Figure 10. Percentage of time where the carbon intensity of hydrogen is below the threshold.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 16 of 21

3.4. Influence of the Considered Time Resolution

For the exemplification of the influence of the considered time resolution, Figure 11
presents a time-series for the carbon intensity of e-H2 in Austria. This case study was se-
lected as a clear and relevant case for illustration purposes, as its carbon intensity of e-H2 is
sometimes below the threshold and sometimes above it. The time-series are calculated and
represented for a daily, weekly, and monthly time resolution. It highlights the importance
of time resolution when comparing the average value to the threshold, as it can be observed
that when the monthly value is just above the threshold, such as in August, some weekly
or daily values can be lower than the threshold, and the contrary can be observed in June.

Figure 11. Time series of e-H2 carbon intensity in Austria.

Figure 12 presents the potential load factor of low-carbon hydrogen production consid-
ering both the production and consumption mix for the different time steps, from annual
values to hourly values. When considering an annual time step, the load factor is 0 or
1, depending on the annual average and if it is above the limit or not. The load factor
is slightly affected by the considered time step. Indeed, as exemplified for Austria in
Figure 11, even if the monthly carbon intensity is above the limit for 1 month, it is possible
that within this month, there are some weeks, days, or hours for which the carbon intensity
is lower than the limit. On the other hand, there might be months with a monthly intensity
below the limit, and within this month, there might be some weeks, days, or hours over the
limit. The larger the time step is, the higher the risk of including periods of time where the
electricity is sourced from high-carbon intensity sources. Having a time step as low as an
hourly time step strongly limits this risk. A larger time step may facilitate the running of an
e-fuel power plant, but Figure 12 also shows that, for most countries, when looking at the
consumption mix, the shorter the time step is, the higher the potential load factor is. This is
due to the fact that every single hour below the limit can be used for plant operation.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 17 of 21

Figure 12. Influence of the considered time step on potential load factor for low-carbon e-fuel production.

4. Conclusions & Perspective

The major contribution of this paper is the quantification of the impact of electricity
production (at high time resolution) and the effect of electricity exchange between different
countries (at the time it occurs) on the carbon intensity of electricity and e-fuels. This is the
most relevant aspect in determining whether any e-fuels produced are indeed “green” and
to what extent they really contribute to the decarbonisation goals for transport. The results
highlight that e-fuels, either hydrogen or fuels derived from it, can be produced using
low-carbon intensity. The condition is to use electricity only when its carbon intensity is low
enough, which significantly affects the potential operational load factor of an electrolysis
unit. A reduced load factor means a reduced number of hours when low-carbon fuels can
be produced, reduced operation power, or a combination of both. Thus, with the per unit of
power capacity of electrolysis installed, this limits both the amount of hydrogen that can be
produced and makes reaching economic viability more challenging. From that perspective,
additional sources of income other than the fuel production itself may help. For instance,
e-fuels could play a role in balancing the grid as storage, which could provide potential
income for the provision of ancillary services to the grid. Indeed, even though combining
environmental and economic performance is challenging, this is a necessary step to ensure
the sustainable production of e-fuels.
Making use of ENTSO-E data, covering the largest network of national grid operators
in the world, we showed that exchanges of electricity between countries have the potential
to dramatically change the carbon intensity of the national electricity mix. Some countries
may have a carbon intensity of their production mix low enough to produce low-carbon
e-fuels under the European legislative framework, but they may depend at some moments
on electricity imports with a higher carbon intensity, which would result in an increase
in the carbon intensity of their consumption mix above the limit. Another key parameter
for the carbon intensity of e-fuels, whether hydrogen or derived fuels, is the considered
temporal resolution. When considering an annual or monthly average of the carbon
intensity, the country might satisfy (or not) the criteria of having an electricity carbon
intensity low enough to produce low-carbon e-fuel over that period. However, with a finer
time resolution, within that period, the carbon intensity of electricity may be low enough
to be used, even if, on average, over the whole period, it is not, or the opposite. The risk of
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 18 of 21

having a time step that is not fine enough is using electricity when the production is not
sourced from low-carbon sources.
Regarding the limits of this study, it is important to mention that massive electrolytic
hydrogen production would require a massive amount of electricity and would involve
major changes to the electricity mix to produce the expected low-carbon e-fuels. It would
then become necessary to apply the proposed methods to prospective scenarios. This
represents an interesting perspective, but that would require prospective production and
exchanging time series between the considered territories, data the authors never found
published in the scientific literature. In addition, it is important to remember that emissions
related to the manufacture of infrastructures are not considered in the scope of this work;
we only cover combustion emissions and upstream emissions related to fuel production.
The inclusion of those emissions will necessarily increase the e-hydrogen footprint and
lower the load factor below the threshold.
Considering the importance e-hydrogen is expected to play inside the EU or outside
for its international trading partners [45], the same methodology might be needed for the
calculation of its carbon intensity. The work can be replicated in any other area of the world
depending on the availability of data at the same level of detail, in particular, a time series
by energy type and electricity exchange data at the right resolution.
Finally, the developed python tool, EcoDynElec_xr, is released under an open-source
license to ensure transparency, result reproducibility, reuse on data that are more recent
than 2023 (when they will be available), reuse for other geographical areas, or reuse in other
applications where a fine and dynamic assessment of electricity impact is needed.

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, R.B., N.S., V.M. and A.B.; Methodology, R.B. and O.H.;
Software, R.B. and O.H.; Validation, R.B., N.S. and O.H.; Formal analysis, R.B. and N.S.; Investigation,
R.B., N.S., V.M. and A.B.; Resources, R.B., N.S., V.M. and A.B.; Data curation, R.B. and O.H.; Writing—
original draft, R.B., N.S. and A.B.; Writing—review & editing, R.B., N.S., O.H. and V.M.; Visualization,
R.B. and O.H.; Supervision, R.B. and N.S.; Project administration, N.S. All authors have read and
agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: The original data presented in the study are openly available in Zenodo
DOI: https://zenodo.org/records/13839821; Github realease: https://github.com/RomainBes/
EcoDynElec_xr/releases/tag/EcoDynElec_xr; Romain Besseau: https://github.com/RomainBes;
https://zenodo.org/records/13839821, (accessed on 24 October 2024).
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Disclaimer: The contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and can, under no circumstances,
be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Commission.
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 10299 19 of 21

Appendix A. Country Codes and Corresponding Country Names

Table A1 indicates the country codes and corresponding country names.

Table A1. Country codes and corresponding country names.

ISO2 Country Name

AT Austria
BA Bosnia and Herzegovina
BE Belgium
BG Bulgaria
CH Switzerland
CZ Czechia
DE Germany
DK Denmark
EE Estonia
ES Spain
FI Finland
FR France
GB United Kingdom
GE Georgia
GR Greece
HR Croatia
HU Hungary
IE Ireland
IT Italy
LT Lithuania
LU Luxembourg
LV Latvia
MD Moldova, Republic of
ME Montenegro
MK North Macedonia
NL Netherlands
NO Norway
PL Poland
PT Portugal
RO Romania
RS Serbia
SE Sweden
SI Slovenia
SK Slovakia
XK Kosovo

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