Emerging trends in hydrogen-based multi-energy systems: Modeling, control, and deployment perspectives

Hydrogen is increasingly viewed as a strategic energy carrier for coupling electricity, heat, and gas networks while enabling long-duration storage and cross-sector decarbonization. Unlike prior reviews that examine hydrogen integration, optimization, or control separately, this review critically connects long-term planning, multi-timescale operation, real-time control, techno-economic assessment, and deployment maturity within a unified hydrogen-based multi-energy system (MES) framework. A structured literature screening and classification workflow was used to categorize studies by modeling timescale, optimization paradigm, uncertainty treatment, validation level, and deployment maturity. The review compares steady-state, multi-period, dynamic/transient, and hybrid physics-data-driven models, along with deterministic, stochastic, robust, and chance-constrained optimization approaches, model predictive control (MPC), and digital twin-assisted operation. It further synthesizes key techno-economic and environmental drivers, including electricity price, electrolyzer efficiency, capital cost, and life-cycle trade-offs. The reviewed advances also support broader sustainability objectives by contributing primarily to SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). The analysis identifies persistent limitations in large-scale dynamic modeling, scalable uncertainty handling, integration of planning and control, interoperability, and empirical validation. The review also distinguishes simulation-based findings from pilot-validated evidence and proposes a phased roadmap toward scalable, low-carbon, and deployment-ready hydrogen-enabled MESs.