How much renewable capacity is needed to produce a target quantity of eFuel? How should the battery and electrolyser be sized? What is the right balance between wind and solar? And which configuration delivers the best compromise between production, cost and carbon footprint?
In H₂ and eFuel ecosystems, these choices are closely interconnected: changing one component can affect performance, cost and carbon footprint across the entire value chain.
This is why SHERPA Engineering has developed a tailored modelling and optimisation solution to understand these interactions and support system-level design decisions.
Originally developed to address a real industrial challenge in off-grid e-diesel production, the solution has since evolved to cover increasingly complex H₂ and eFuel ecosystems.
Why component-by-component thinking falls short
An H₂ or eFuel ecosystem is only as effective as the way its different components work together.
SHERPA Engineering’s approach models the complete energy chain within a single dynamic simulation environment – from photovoltaic and wind generation through battery storage and hydrogen production to the final synthetic fuel.
Because renewable production is inherently variable, the dynamic model also considers how the system behaves over time. Location-specific weather profiles reproduce variations in solar irradiation and wind conditions and can easily be changed to assess the same architecture in different regions.
This makes it possible to understand how technology choices interact under realistic operating conditions.
Bigger isn’t always better
System-level modelling can reveal trade-offs that are not immediately obvious when technologies are considered individually.
Take renewable generation. Adding more photovoltaic or wind capacity initially provides more energy for hydrogen production. But beyond a certain point, more renewable capacity does not necessarily mean more useful energy: storage or electrolysis can become the limiting factor.
The reverse is equally true: a larger electrolyser provides more theoretical H₂-production capacity, but creates little additional value if renewable generation and storage cannot supply it sufficiently often.
Battery storage provides another example. Increasing battery capacity can make more renewable electricity available when wind or solar production falls. At first sight, more storage might therefore appear inherently beneficial.
But our simulations show that battery sizing can have a significant impact on both CAPEX and CO₂ emissions. An oversized battery may provide additional storage, but the additional investment and carbon footprint can penalise the performance of the overall solution.
The common lesson is simple: the objective is not to maximise each component, but to find the right balance between them.
To make these trade-offs visible, SHERPA Engineering’s model combines technical simulation with CAPEX, OPEX and CO₂ assessment across the complete energy chain, allowing alternative architectures to be compared from technical, economic and environmental perspectives.
From exploring scenarios to finding the optimum
How much PV? How much wind? What battery capacity? What electrolyser size?
What fuel-production capacity?
As the number of variables increases, manually exploring every relevant combination quickly becomes impractical.
SHERPA Engineering therefore complements dynamic simulation with an optimisation layer. Based on a defined fuel-production target and user constraints, optimisation algorithms explore different combinations of system components to identify configurations that meet the required demand while finding the best trade-off between production cost and CO₂ footprint.
This fundamentally changes the question that modelling can answer. Instead of only asking: “How will this architecture perform?” it becomes possible to ask: “What architecture best meets my objectives?”
Complex modelling, made usable
Complex modelling only creates value if engineers and decision-makers can actually use it. Industrial teams need a solution adapted to their architecture, assumptions and decisions.
SHERPA Engineering combines expertise in system modelling, control, energy systems and optimisation to develop tailored models and dedicated interfaces around each customer’s use cases.
The customer does not need to become a modelling expert: the complexity remains within the model, while users interact with their own engineering parameters and decision criteria through a dedicated interface.
The result is not simply another simulation. It is a virtual decision-support environment for answering one of the most important questions facing emerging H₂ and eFuel projects: What should we actually build?
Working on an H₂, eFuel or renewable-energy ecosystem?
If you’re facing questions around architecture, component sizing, cost or carbon footprint, talk to our team about how modelling and optimisation can help identify the right balance before key design decisions are made.
