It is widely accepted that hydrogen will play a role in achieving net-zero, especially for hard-to-decarbonise sectors, such as steel and aviation. Many hydrogen technologies are ready for deployment, but currently the biggest challenge is establishing strong and robust value chains for hydrogen. Modelling and optimisation are effective tools to design and explore various hydrogen value chains.

This course provides an overview of the development of a large optimisation model for designing value chains for hydrogen. The model includes many features such as linepack, hydrogen injection into gas grids, carbon capture, storage and utilisation technologies, underground storage (salt caverns, depleted oil and gas fields), negative emissions technologies, along with alternative technologies such as heat pumps, electric vehicles, among others. It is a multi-objective optimisation model, meaning that multiple different objectives can be considered simultaneously, such as minimising cost, minimising emissions, and so on. It is based on mixed integer programming and it can simultaneously determine the design, planning and operation of any integrated multi-vector energy network. For example, it can: determine when to invest in facilities and where to locate them; decide what resources are used, when and where, how to convert them to the products and services required; and how to transport them and manage inventory.

This course serves a taster for what can be achieved with this modelling technique. Please let me know if you would like me to create a full course on how to develop models like this one, complete with step-by-step demonstrations of how to develop the mathematical formulation, how to implement them in a computer program, designing scenarios using the model, and visualisation and interpretation of results. You can message me in Research Trove and if there is enough demand then I will develop a full course on this.