Techno-Economic Assessment of a Hybrid Offshore Wind–Tidal System for Green Hydrogen Production and Maritime Export in Morocco

Morocco’s National Green Hydrogen Roadmap targets large-scale hydrogen exports, yet the offshore wind and tidal resources of the Atlantic Sahara coast remain underexplored, and single-resource electrolysis plants suffer from low, variable electrolyser utilisation. This study presents a reproducible techno-economic model of a 560 MW hybrid offshore wind–tidal hub at Dakhla producing hydrogen via proton-exchange-membrane (PEM) electrolysis and exporting it as liquid hydrogen (LH₂) to Jorf Lasfar (1,241 km). The regional wind, current and sea-surface-temperature resource is characterised from Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) reanalysis and satellite products (2002–2016), complemented by ERA5 hourly wind for the Weibull fit; the framework then integrates harmonic (M₂+S₂) tidal modelling, Jensen wake losses, hourly dispatch, liquefaction, shipping, and discounted levelised-cost-of-hydrogen (LCOH) analysis. For a 510/50 MW wind/tidal configuration feeding a 350 MW electrolyser, capacity factors reach 49.1 % (wind), 8.8 % (tidal) and 45.5 % (hybrid), yielding ≈36,800 t H₂/yr at 60 % utilisation with 15.1 % curtailment. The 2025 base-case production LCOH is 7.53 USD/kg (10.04 USD/kg delivered); a 2030 learning scenario reduces this to 4.45 USD/kg, approaching the 2–4 USD/kg roadmap band. Hybridisation provides firming value through near-zero wind–tidal correlation, reducing output variance and electrolyser cycling rather than adding energy. Sensitivity analysis identifies capacity factor and electrolyser specific energy consumption as the dominant cost drivers, ahead of wind capital cost and the cost of capital. This work offers the first integrated wind–tidal hydrogen assessment for the Moroccan Atlantic coast and a transparent modelling platform for future multi-objective optimisation.