Supply and Demand Drivers of Global Hydrogen Deployment in the Transition toward a Decarbonized Energy System

Abstract

The role of hydrogen in energy system decarbonization is being actively examined by the research and policy communities. We evaluate the potential "hydrogen economy" in global climate change mitigation scenarios using the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM). We consider major hydrogen production methods in conjunction with delivery options to understand how hydrogen infrastructure affects its deployment. We also consider a rich set of hydrogen end-use technologies and vary their costs to understand how demand technologies affect deployment. We find that the availability of hydrogen transmission and distribution infrastructure primarily affects the hydrogen production mix, particularly the share produced centrally versus on-site, whereas assumptions about end-use technology primarily affect the scale of hydrogen deployment. In effect, hydrogen can be a source of distributed energy, enabled by on-site renewable electrolysis and, to a lesser extent, by on-site production at industrial facilities using natural gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS). While the share of hydrogen in final energy is small relative to the share of other major energy carriers in our scenarios, hydrogen enables decarbonization in difficult-to-electrify end uses, such as industrial high-temperature heat. Hydrogen deployment, and in turn its contribution to greenhouse gas mitigation, increases as the climate objective is tightened.

Assessing Transition Pathways of Hydrogen Production in China with a Probabilistic Framework

“…Most research results ,,,,, fall between our orderly strategy and radical strategy, and the majority agree that wind and solar will be the mainstream energy sources for green hydrogen production (together accounting for over 70%), aligning with our conclusions. A few studies, due to higher potential assumptions, suggest that byproduct-based, nuclear-based, , or biomass-based hydrogen will have a larger share (over 20%), slightly higher than our results.…”

“…Through a detailed literature review (Table S1 summarizes the current state of relevant studies), ,,,,− we found that only a few studies , have employed probabilistic frameworks, typically based on simplistic methods such as technology diffusion models. However, considering that the aforementioned methods fail to provide detailed technical characterizations and strategies for infrastructure investment and operation, energy system models remain the mainstream method in this domain .…”