Abstract
he EU has high ambitions about the role of hydrogen in the future energy system. Natural gas will gradually play a smaller role, and its unabated usage is unlikely after 2050. Additionally, we can expect an increasing need to transport carbon dioxide from capture to storage locations. Repurposing natural gas infrastructure for hydrogen and carbon dioxide transmission can significantly reduce cost of integrating hydrogen in the energy system and enabling carbon capture and storage. We propose an optimization approach to find a minimal cost solution to meet transport demand for natural gas, hydrogen and carbon dioxide between 2025 and 2050. The model considers supply and demand projections at a detailed NUTS2 level for various gases. It decides which infrastructure to repurpose and which additional pipelines are needed. We consider two cases. A first case considers offshore storage of carbon dioxide in the Dutch North Sea. A second case considers two scenarios, where North-West European countries either rely on hydrogen supply from Norway and Finland, or on overseas imports.