How government policies promote transportation utilization in the national-level hydrogen supply chain: A case of China.

Pipeline transportation is a low-cost option for delivering large volumes of hydrogen (H 2), however, the high initial capital cost remains a major impediment to expanding pipeline delivery infrastructure. To quantitatively evaluate the impact of the H 2 pipeline on the hydrogen supply chain (HSC), this paper develops an evaluation system for the development potential of the H 2 pipeline and simulation models for H 2 resource allocation. Furthermore, the HSC system in the southwest of China is used to validate the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the levelized cost range of a given 150–550 km H 2 pipeline is 2.76–10.12 CNY/kg, which has price advantages over other transportation modes. Compared with the hydrogen supply chain resource allocation (HSCR) model, putting the H 2 pipeline into use can optimize the layout and utilization of different transportation modes. It shows that the proportion of H 2 transportation volume distribution in H 2 pipelines has increased from 0 % to 73.44 %, while the proportion of HLT has first increased from 18.86 % to 54.27 %, and then decreased to 17.95 %. And then under different policy scenarios, the consideration of pipeline reduces the sensitivity of the H 2 blending ratio of natural gas (NG) and NG demand to HSC. The impacts of policies on regional H 2 development and regional policy implications are revealed. This approach provides a tool for policymakers to quantify the impacts of policy. • Propose an evaluation system to quantify the H 2 pipeline economy. • Optimize H2 resource allocation in various policy scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]