Exploring hydrogen supply/demand networks: Modeller and domain expert views

Energy companies are considering producing renewable fuels such as hydrogen/ammonia. Setting up a production network means deciding where to build production plants, and how to operate them at minimum electricity and transport costs. These decisions are complicated by many factors including the difficulty in obtaining accurate current data (e.g., electricity price and transport costs) for potential supply locations, the accuracy of data predictions (e.g., for demand and costs), and the need for some decisions to be made due to external (not modelled) factors. Thus, decision-makers need access to a user-centric decision system that helps them visualise, explore, interact and compare the many possible solutions of many different scenarios. This paper describes the system we have built to support our energy partner in making such decisions, and shows the advantages of having a graphical user-focused interactive tool, and of using a high-level constraint modelling language (MiniZinc) to implement the underlying model.