| Summary: | Hydrogen (H2) production from variable renewable energy (VRE) sources can be an important technology for reducing CO2 emissions. Integrating electrolytic H2 production into the electricity system can contribute to this objective on two fronts. Firstly, electrolytic H2 production will be important to enable large shares of VRE integration into the electricity system as it can provide demand-side flexibility at scale. Secondly, H2 can mitigate CO2 emissions in end-use applications that is hard to decarbonize by other means, such as direct electrification. The scope of this thesis is limited to study the effects of large-scale H2 production on the electricity system. Mathematical models are developed and used to study how flexible H2 production can enable cost efficient VRE integration and reduction of CO2 emissions. The models include representations of H2 production as flexible demand and sectorcoupling between H2 and electricity systems. The sector coupled model enables an integrated analysis of multiple H2 production pathways, based on electricity and natural gas. A stochastic rolling horizon dispatch capacity expansion problem is formulated and modeled to investigate the impact of short-term uncertainty from VRE sources on investments in the electricity system. This approach also incorporates the modeling of long-term storage. The results shows that more installed capacity will be needed to handle short-term uncertainty compared to the results from deterministic models. This model can provide an important foundation for future models that studies the impacts of flexibility from H2 production on electricity systems. H2 production is studied in two different case studies, based on the electricity systems of northern Norway and the state of Texas in the US. The two electricity systems have different sources of flexibility, where hydro power provides flexibility in northern Norway and natural gas in Texas. Flexibility from natural gas is a source of CO2 emissions while the emissions from hydro power are ...
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