Determining priorities for hydrogen infrastructure projects in Europe based on total system costs

Kurzfassung

Hydrogen production can provide important flexibility in a carbon-neutral European energy system, but its value depends on where and how pipeline and storage infrastructure are deployed. This study assesses the system benefits of hydrogen flexibility using REMix-Eur, a linear optimisation model of the European energy system with hourly resolution, 57 model regions and a technological scope of more than 100 technologies. We optimise a carbon-neutral 2050 target system and compare it with 24 scenarios in which hydrogen transfer and storage capacities are restricted relative to the cost-minimal case. The evaluation takes total system costs, investments, levelised cost of hydrogen, electrolyser operation, and regional infrastructure priorities for hydrogen technologies into account. Our results show that for the chosen scenario setup an inflexible hydrogen system increases annual system costs by 36 billion € or about 10 % compared to the cost-optimal case. Most of this penalty comes from restricting network rather than storage expansion. In the optimal case, Europe builds around 120 TWh of hydrogen cavern storage, with 57 % of it repurposed from previous natural gas utilisation. Electrolyser capacity ranges from around 330 GW to more than 500 GW across scenarios, and infrastructure enabling flexibility reduces the model-implied levelised cost of hydrogen from 64 € /MWh in the inflexible case to 51 € /MWh for the optimum. Our findings suggest that early hydrogen planning should prioritise cross-border pipeline corridors and the retrofitting of existing storage sites, especially in the North Sea region.