The long term price elastic demand of hydrogen – A multi-model analysis for Germany

Hydrogen and its derivatives are important components to achieve climate policy goals, especially in terms of greenhouse gas neutrality. There is an ongoing controversial debate about the applications in which hydrogen and its derivatives should be used and to what extent. Typically, the estimation of hydrogen demand relies on scenario-based analyses with varying underlying assumptions and targets. This study establishes a new framework consisting of existing energy system simulation and optimisation models in order to assess the long-term price-elastic demand of hydrogen. The aim of this work is to shift towards an analysis of the hydrogen demand that is primarily driven by its price. This is done for the case of Germany because of the expected high hydrogen demand for the years 2025–2045. 15 wholesale price pathways were established, with final prices in 2045 between 56 €/MWh and 182 €/MWh. The results suggest that – if climate targets are to be achieved - even with high hydrogen prices (252 €/MWh in 2030 and 182 €/MWh in 2045) a significant hydrogen demand in the industry sector and the energy conversion sector is expected to emerge (318 TWh). Furthermore, the energy conversion sector has a large share of price sensitive hydrogen demand and therefore its demand strongly increases with lower prices. The road transportation sector will only play a small role in terms of hydrogen demand, if prices are low. In the decentralised heating for buildings no relevant demand will be seen over the considered price ranges, whereas the centralised supply of heat via heat grids increases as prices fall.