Endogenous learning for green hydrogen in a sector-coupled energy model for Europe

Abstract

Many studies have shown that hydrogen could play a large role in the energy transition for hard-to-electrify sectors, but previous modelling has not included the necessary features to assess its role. They have either left out important sectors of hydrogen demand, ignored the temporal variability in the system or neglected the dynamics of learning effects. We address these limitations and consider learning-by-doing for the full green hydrogen production chain with different climate targets in a detailed European sector-coupled model. Here, we show that in the next 10 years a faster scale-up of electrolysis and renewable capacities than envisaged by the EU in the REPowerEU Plan is cost-optimal in order to reach the +1.5°C target. This reduces the costs for hydrogen production to 1.26 Eur/kg by 2050. Hydrogen production switches from grey to green hydrogen, omitting the option of blue hydrogen. If electrolysis costs are modelled without dynamic learning-by-doing, then the electrolysis scale-up is significantly delayed, while total system costs are overestimated by up to 13% and the levelised cost of hydrogen is overestimated by 67%.

10 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Synergies of sector coupling and transmission reinforcement in a cost-optimised, highly renewable European energy system
• Impact of different time series aggregation methods on optimal energy system design
• Early decarbonisation of the European energy system pays off
• Speed of technological transformations required in Europe to achieve different climate goals
• Mitigating heat demand peaks in buildings in a highly renewable European energy system

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Potential Role of a Hydrogen Network in Europe
• PyPSA-Earth. A New Global Open Energy System Optimization Model Demonstrated in Africa
• Broad Ranges of Investment Configurations for Renewable Power Systems, Robust to Cost Uncertainty and Near-Optimality
• Little to lose: the case for a robust European green hydrogen strategy
• Stabilized Benders decomposition for energy planning under climate uncertainty
• Shifting burdens: How delayed decarbonisation of road transport affects other sectoral emission reductions
• REMIND-PyPSA-Eur: Integrating power system flexibility into sector-coupled energy transition pathways