Design and operation of a future hydrogen supply chain: Multi-period model

Introducing hydrogen as the fuel of the future necessitates a comprehensive, widespread supply chain network that is capable of producing, distributing, storing, and dispensing hydrogen to end users. Most of the early attempts to design and model the future hydrogen supply chain (HSC) were either limited to examining an individual component of the supply chain or focused on a predetermined hydrogen pathway. In these studies, a simulation-based approach has commonly been adopted rather than using a mathematical programming-based approach. The work presented here is an extension of an early attempt to design and operate a deterministic, steady-state HSC network using a mathematical modelling approach. In this paper, however, the model is developed to consider the availability of energy sources (i.e. raw materials) and their logistics, as well as the variation of hydrogen demand over a long-term planning horizon leading to phased infrastructure development. The proposed model is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) and solved via a commercial software tool, GAMS. The results show that the optimal design of the future HSC network of Great Britain (GB) starts with small-size plant together with using the hydrogen currently produced by chemical processing plants. As demand grows, more plants of different sizes should be built to meet the demand. The hydrogen produced will be transported using liquid hydrogen trucks and stored in different sizes of storage facilities. (C) 2009 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.