Modelling the role of hydrogen in future energy systems aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement
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Full Text E-thesis
Date
2026-04-10
Authors
Mathews, Duncan
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Publisher
University College Cork
Published Version
Abstract
The Paris Agreement forms the backbone of the global efforts to limit atmospheric warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels thereby reducing the future impact of climate change. Under the Paris Agreement, signatory parties have agreed to submit ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions that detail their plans for significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions and mitigation. In this context, hydrogen has long been championed as a versatile energy vector with the potential to decarbonise a wide range of end uses. However, hydrogen's history is marked by cycles of surging and waning enthusiasm, with periods of high expectation consistently followed by slow deployment and a subsequent loss of confidence.
These hype cycles are more than a historical curiosity - they exacerbate uncertainty regarding the scope and timing of hydrogen’s future role leading to challenging planning problems for policymakers and system planners.
Integrated assessment and energy system models are helpful tools that can alleviate uncertainty and inform policy around the optimal role of hydrogen in a future decarbonised global energy system. However, these tools exhibit limitations, such as spatio-temporal resolution constraints, that are particularly pertinent to the modelling of Hydrogen. Addressing these limitations and improving the foundational methodologies of these modelling tools is essential to provide the quantitative evidence needed to guide effective policy in this uncertain environment. This thesis develops and applies novel contributions to the modelling of electrolytic hydrogen in future systems aligned with the Paris Agreement. Regarding data inputs for energy systems modelling, this thesis provides a foundational contribution by demonstrating that the low round-trip efficiency of hydrogen-based long-duration energy storage provides an error propagation mechanism that significantly magnifies biases in widely used meteorological datasets for renewable power resource modelling. Through developing and validating a framework for a high resolution 256 region global electricity and hydrogen model to be soft linked to integrated assessment model scenarios, this thesis provides an “engine” with which to generate coupled
hydrogen and electricity models based on future scenarios aligned with the Paris Agreement. This allows the supplementation of low spatio-temporal resolution integrated assessment models and ensures hydrogen's potential as a storage medium or energy vector is technically represented in the model. This framework is leveraged to provide evidence-based insights on the economic penalties of different policy pathways. Specifically, this work considers a scenario in which hydrogen’s “false dawns” results in policymakers being surprised by a significant emergent role for hydrogen in the future. In this case, this thesis quantifies the costs of reactively planning for hydrogen’s integration with the power sector versus a proactive, integrated approach. In addition, the cost of forcibly isolating the electrolytic hydrogen sector from the electricity sector versus the proactive, integrated approach is also quantified. The frameworks and analysis presented in this work contribute to
addressing key modelling gaps identified in the literature and highlight the costs of sub-optimal policies in the face of uncertainty. Principally, this thesis explores the “Energy System Modelling Trilemma” and its implications for hydrogen in energy systems models. The trilemma is introduced in this thesis to describe the challenges of balancing computational tractability, spatio-temporal resolution and model scope.
Overall, it is aimed to facilitate more robust, quantitative debate around hydrogen’s role in deep decarbonisation scenarios.
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Keywords
Hydrogen , Energy modelling , Integrated assessment modelling , Energy systems
Citation
Mathews, D. 2026. Modelling the role of hydrogen in future energy systems aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement. PhD Thesis, University College Cork.