Minimum-regret hydrogen supply chain strategies to foster the energy transition of European hard-to-abate industries

TL;DR

This paper develops a minimum-regret optimization model for European hydrogen supply chains, considering demand and biomass uncertainties, to inform strategic infrastructure investments for decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries.

Contribution

It introduces a scenario-based, minimum-regret optimization framework for designing flexible, cost-effective hydrogen supply chains under demand and biomass availability uncertainties.

Findings

Large low-carbon hydrogen capacities are needed by 2030 for future demand.

Biomass-based hydrogen is most cost-efficient but depends on biomass availability.

CCS infrastructure is crucial across all scenarios.

Abstract

Low-carbon hydrogen (H2) is envisioned to play a central role in decarbonizing European hard-to-abate industries, such as refineries, ammonia, methanol, steel, and cement. To enable its widespread use, H2 supply chain (HSC) infrastructure is required. Mature and economically viable low-carbon H2 production pathways include steam methane reforming (SMR) of natural gas coupled with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), water-electrolysis from renewable electricity, biomethane reforming, and biomass gasification. However, uncertainties surrounding demand and feedstock availabilities hamper their proliferation. Here, we investigate the impact of uncertainty in H2 demand and biomass availability on the optimal HSC design. The HSC is modeled as a network of H2 production and consumption sites that are interconnected with H2 and biomass transport technologies. A CCS supply chain is modeled alongside the HSC. The cost-optimal HSC design is determined based on a linear optimization problem that considers a regional resolution and a multi-year time horizon (2022-2050). We adopt a scenario-based uncertainty quantification approach and define discrete H2 demand and biomass availability scenarios. Applying a minimum-regret strategy, we show that sufficiently large low-carbon H2 production capacities (about 9.6 Mt/a by 2030) are essential to flexibly scale up HSCs and accommodate H2 demands of up to 35 Mt/a by 2050. While biomass-based H2 production emerges as the most cost-efficient low-carbon H2 production pathway, investments are not recommended unless the availability of biomass feedstocks is guaranteed. Instead, investments in SMR-CCS and electrolysis often offer greater flexibility. In addition, we highlight the importance of CCS infrastructure, which is required across scenarios.