On the left, an illustration of the spatial extent and resolution of the model used in this study. Note that the modeling region includes the EU (minus Cyprus and Malta) in addition to the UK, Switzerland, Norway, and most Balkan countries. For an exact listing of which technologies are included in which legend categories, see the plotting code (seedata and code availability). In the middle, the cost-optimal pathway, consisting of a sequence of cost optimizations at 5-year intervals, where capacities from each optimization are carried over to the next (minus capacities that are phased out). Blue and red arrows illustrate the minimizations and maximizations (respectively) of green hydrogen at each time horizon; total system costs are not allowed to exceed(1+)times the optimal system cost for each time horizon. This sequence of optimizations is repeated for each of the 216 considered scenarios, and with=2%,5%,and10%.
