# Assessing the Carbon Intensity of e-fuels Production in European Countries: A Temporal Analysis
###### 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 _EoDymElc_ tool to develop _EoDymElc_,_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. e +
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* The direct use of electricity in battery electric vehicles, electric trains, or other trolley 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; 9; 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.