  Hydrogen is becoming an increasingly appealing energy carrier, as the costs
of renewable energy generation and water electrolysis continue to decline.
Developing modelling and decision tools for the H$_{2}$ supply chain that fully
capture the flexibility of various resources is essential to understanding the
overall cost-competitiveness of H$_{2}$ use. To address this need, we have
developed a H$_{2}$ supply chain planning model that determines the least-cost
mix of H$_{2}$ generation, storage, transmission, and compression facilities to
meet H$_{2}$ demands and is coupled with power systems through electricity
prices. We incorporate flexible scheduling for H$_{2}$ trucks and pipeline,
allowing them to serve as both H$_{2}$ transmission and storage resources to
shift H$_{2}$ demand/production across space and time. The case study results
in the U.S. Northeast indicate that the proposed framework for flexible
scheduling of H$_{2}$ transmission and storage resources is critical not only
to cost minimization but also to the choice of H$_{2}$ production pathways
between electrolyzer and centralized natural-gas-based production facilities.
Trucks as mobile storage could make electrolyzer more competitive by providing
extra spatiotemporal flexibility to respond to the electricity price
variability while meeting H$_{2}$ demands. The proposed model also provides a
reasonable trade-off between modeling accuracy and solution times.
