Green hydrogen plays a strategic role in the decarbonization of the maritime transportation. A step useful to favor the use and the exploitation of the hydrogen is the development of hydrogen supply chains that, by including both the infrastructures and the end users, can simplify the economic issues and the authorization processes. This paper is focused on the designing, sizing and economic feasibility of a sustainable supply chain that consists of a solar-driven electrolysis system that generates hydrogen for powering a fuel cell-based propulsion system installed on board a small passenger ferry boat travelling on a short route. The sizing procedure is based on a numerical procedure that aims to find the optimal supply chain configuration, in terms of components’ sizes, able to satisfy the hydrogen demand and to sustain the electrical energy requirements by only using the renewable source. Results of this study highlight that a hydrogen production of 128.7 tons/year is produced by using an alkaline electrolysis unit of 1780 kW integrated with a 8.15 MW_p photovoltaic power plant. The produced hydrogen allows to satisfy the specific requirements of the ferry boat with a total number of 314 roundtrips per year. From the economic point of view, by valorizing the electricity surplus and the by-product oxygen from the electrolysis process, the estimated profitability index and the discounted payback period are 2.03 and 9 years, respectively, making the investment attractive. The calculated levelized cost of the produced green hydrogen is equal to 5.61 €/kg. These results demonstrate the techno-economic feasibility of the proposed supply chain based on hydrogen technologies that, being already available on the market, can be effectively implemented to support the decarbonization of the maritime sector.

绿氢在海上运输脱碳中发挥着战略作用。有利于促进氢气使用和开发的一个步骤是发展氢气供应链，通过包括基础设施和最终用户，可以简化经济问题和授权流程。本文侧重于可持续供应链的设计、规模和经济可行性，该供应链由太阳能驱动的电解系统组成，该电解系统产生氢气，为安装在短途航行的小型客渡船上的基于燃料电池的推进系统提供动力路线。选型程序基于旨在根据组件尺寸找到最佳供应链配置的数值程序，仅通过使用可再生能源就能够满足氢气需求并维持电能需求。这项研究的结果强调，使用 1780 kW 的碱性电解装置和 8.15 MW 的集成装置可生产 128.7 吨/年的氢气_p光伏电站。产生的氢气可以满足每年往返 314 次的渡船的特定要求。从经济角度来看，通过对电解过程中的剩余电力和副产氧进行定价，预计盈利指数和折现投资回收期分别为 2.03 年和 9 年，具有投资吸引力。所生产的绿色氢的计算平准化成本等于 5.61 欧元/千克。这些结果证明了拟议的基于氢技术的供应链的技术经济可行性，这些技术已经在市场上可用，可以有效实施以支持海事部门的脱碳。