Techno-economic assessment of different clean hydrogen development pathways across industries in China

Clean hydrogen, including green and blue hydrogen, presents a promising option to decarbonize hard-to-abate (HTA) industries. However, the focus on the diffusion pathways for blue and green hydrogen and cross-sector comparisons is limited. Therefore, a bottom-up techno-economic assessment model is established for four Chinese HTA industries that consider hydrogen demand and supply sides. An S-shaped growth curve is used to simulate the possible clean hydrogen supply paths with various blue and green hydrogen mix structures. Two pathway scenarios with different mixtures of clean hydrogen are developed. Despite similar mitigation potential, the green hydrogen-dominant pathway exhibits superior economic performance than the blue hydrogen-dominant pathway. It saves $115.5 billion compared to the blue hydrogen-dominant scenario and incurs only an additional $73.7 billion in total costs compared to a traditional technology pathway. Clean hydrogen utilization in the iron and steel industry requires significant technology investments from both the supply and demand sides. In contrast, the methanol, ammonia, and oil refining industries primarily incur hydrogen supply costs, with minimal demand-side investment needs, leading to greater mid- to long-term economic advantages and lower mitigation costs as technology advances. These comprehensive and dynamic comparisons of techno-economic performance aid in industry-specific policy-making.