West-East Hydrogen Transmission: Mode selection and key factor analysis of green hydrogen supply chain.

Promoting the transformation of the energy structure and establishing a diversified clean energy system are essential for achieving China's goal of "dual carbon". It is worth noting that hydrogen energy plays a significant role in this energy structure transformation. This study aims to select the optimum green hydrogen supply chain mode and analyze the impact of key factors, considering the entire green hydrogen supply chain, including production, compression and storage, transportation, and refueling. A system dynamics model is constructed to simulate different green hydrogen supply chain modes, taking into account the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH), hydrogen production, and energy consumption of the green hydrogen supply chain as the objectives. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to explore the impact of the key factors on the optimum green hydrogen supply chain mode including electricity prices, electricity consumption, and government subsidy policies. An empirical study is conducted on the green hydrogen supply chain from Inner Mongolia to Beijing, and the results indicate that, PEM + pipeline mode presents the optimum green hydrogen supply chain mode, as it achieves the lowest LCOH of 20.42 CNY/kg, the highest hydrogen production and lowest energy consumption by 2035. The costs of hydrogen production stage and refueling stage are the main components of the LCOH of the green hydrogen supply chain. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates that reducing electricity price, decreasing power consumption of energy-intensive equipment, and increasing infrastructure subsidies could significantly impact the optimum green hydrogen supply chain mode, with the greatest effect observed in the decrease of power consumption in energy-intensive equipment.