Green Hydrogen-Flexible and Optimised Networks by interDisciplinary, multiDimensional and methOdological Research – GrHyFONDDOR

Green hydrogen is one of the key enablers of the energy transition and decarbonization of our societies as confirmed by the most recent energy roadmaps and national plans aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050. For hydrogen to play a significant role in the future demand mix, its costs should go down implying improved infrastructure design and operations. Green hydrogen cannot take off without a coordinated support across the value chain. The objective of this proposal is to address the design and management of green hydrogen systems within a dynamic and integrated approach, combining engineering, mathematics and economics.

The generic research hypotheses consider hydrogen has a noticeable role to play specifically in the transport sector which requires large amounts of clean energy as an enabler of deep decarbonization of this difficult to abate sector. More recently hydrogen has become increasingly recognized as one of the most promising zero-emission technologies for future aircrafts. Besides, hydrogen hubs or valleys are seen to be able to boost hydrogen mobility by leveraging economies of scale in strategic locations such as ports and airports (e.g. the case of Hyport in the Occitania Region). In the short term, the most promising ones will involve Power-to-Hydrogen-to-Mobility systems using low temperature electrolysis, fed by a mix of wind, solar and hydro as renewable electricity sources with the power grid and combining several modes of transport distribution and storage. These hydrogen supply chains (HSC) that shall be labelled green will be the under the scope and require integration into a smart grid for adequate management.

For this purpose, several barriers need to be overcome to represent three main issues with the adapted granularity levels: (i) Management of HSC complexity - technological and spatial integration (ii) Dynamic aspect of Renewable Electricity based HSC (iii) Multi agent involvement
The expected result of this work is thus to propose a comprehensive methodological framework for the optimal design, deployment and management of Green Hydrogen Supply Chains (HSC), and its associated software automation tools, focusing on Power-to-Mobility Systems and their spatio-temporal integration considering the potential of Renewable Energy Source (RES). It will combine engineering and economic approaches with an optimization-based approach and reconcile design and operational approaches. This framework will lead to a decision support system for scenario analysis.

One of the challenges is to understand in an integrated way the level of variability and complexity that exists in green hydrogen systems. They must represent with the right level of granularity the temporal, spatial, technological and cross-sectoral aspects in view of the development and interconnection of the different technological bricks of the "Power-to-Mobility" chain. The proposed methodology will however be sufficiently generic and replicable so that the application to the case studies has a value of example for other territories (ecosystem, region scale) and can be extrapolated to a national case (e.g. France).

The methodological framework will involve cross-fertilization of the different fields of competence of the consortium of the research project, including mathematical (mixed linear and nonlinear programming) and stochastic approaches, econometrics, statistical analysis and network analysis.
The dissemination strategy which will be defined in a formal plan addresses the scientific and the industrial community as well as public bodies through targeted dissemination instruments, and in particular, the use of reference cases to contribute to the development of a sustainable hydrogen infrastructure.