Mitigating resource mismatches-oriented optimal cross-regional green hydrogen supply strategy considering cost and risk

Low-cost green hydrogen can be produced via water electrolysis in regions with abundant renewable energy; however, the geographical mismatch between hydrogen supply and demand necessitates efficient production site and transport mode selection to ensure its cost-effectiveness and safety. This study addresses this challenge by developing the cross-regional hydrogen supply strategies optimization model under hydrogen supply costs and risks minimization goals for the government in areas with limited resources. A wind-solar-battery renewable energy system is proposed for green hydrogen production, incorporating tube trailers, liquid hydrogen trucks, and pipelines as transport options, to jointly determine optimal production site locations and transport routes. A hydrogen risk assessment method is proposed, which combines population density and transportation distance variables with a natural language processing-aided analysis of historical hydrogen accident frequencies. A case study conducted in Chongqing, China, demonstrates the model’s effectiveness through various scenario analyses. The study reveals a trade-off between cost and risk across different hydrogen supply strategies and identifies a negative power-law relationship between the distance of production sites and production costs, indicating that cost savings diminish as transport distances increase. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis is carried out to explore the uncertainties in hydrogen demand, the impacts of extreme heat weather, the technology development of tube-trailer storage and transport, and the policy support for risk and investment mitigation.