Volume 23: Sustainable Energy Solutions for a Post-COVID Recovery towards a Better Future: Part VI

Least-cost hydrogen supply chain for off-site hydrogen production from large scale renewable power in China—A case study of China’s Western Inner Mongolia Luping HUO, Haiyang LIN,Qie SUN

Abstract

Concerting renewable energy into hydrogen and transporting it to the end of consumption is the promising choice to achieve large-scale deep decarbonization in transportation sector. Based on this, this paper constructs a large-scale centralized renewable energy hydrogen supply chain (HSC) network model to investigate the lowest cost of three different green hydrogen supply pathways, including production, compression, storage, transportation, and utilization. The fluctuation of wind power, solar power, and hydrogen fuel demand are integrated in the model, which is optimized by dynamic programming. Different production and delivery pathways are evaluated to find the least-cost way for transport hydrogen utilization. Applying the model to China’s Western Inner Mongolia
(WIM) region, the HSC network plan in 2030 was established. The results show that the least-cost hydrogen supply is to produce hydrogen by wind power and to transport it in liquid hydrogen by truck. This study provides guidance and reference for the future planning and design of green HSC network in other countries or regions.

Keywords Hydrogen supply chain, wind and solar power, delivery pathways, Western Inner Mongolia (WIM)