IMAGINE – Market-based multi-period planning of European hydrogen and natural gas infrastructure

Climate neutrality in Europe requires transformations in all parts of the economy, including the gas sector. Potentials and sourcing strategies for carbon-neutral energy carriers have attracted substantial attention. Critical decisions involve imports versus domestic fuel production and investments in new or repurposing existing pipeline and storage infrastructure. Our approach analyses future H
2
and CH
4
markets and infrastructure developments by linking a pan-European energy system planning model with the new multi-period European gas market model IMAGINE which minimises all investment and operation costs for H
2
and CH
4
markets in daily resolution for several planning periods in a closed optimisation. Case study results show an increasing need for H
2
infrastructure and a decreasing need for CH
4
infrastructure in net-neutral Europe. Based on the assumed carbon and natural gas price developments, an optimal transformation path sees blue H
2
as a bridge technology until 2040. The analysis also highlights the need to explicitly represent gas infrastructure and market developments with significant technological and temporal detail in low-carbon energy systems.