Development of a Decision-Making Model for Energy Supply Chains Involving Alkaline Electrolysis Based Power to Gas Infrastructure

Energy is the most important infrastructure in the economy. It is essential to supply energy in the sufficient amount at the right time for any economic organization. Development of cheap and sufficient energy sources contributes to the continuous economic development and the associated improved living standards. The meeting energy demand in the most cost competitive manner is an endless quest the energy system should tackle. Power to gas(P2G) is recently drawing an increasing attention as a means to take advantage of redundant energy that could have been wasted. Alkaline Electrolysis (AE) itself is not the most efficient energy generating system. But the concept of P2G via AE brought multiple opportunity in the energy supply chain. There are other methodologies to produce hydrogen. The main contribution of AE is that it takes advantage of potentially wasted electricity energy. The overall efficiency of the energy supply chain can be thus raised. AE has been playing the role of alternative option. There comes a time to approach as a potentially important dominant player in the energy supply chain. Particularly it is going to play an important role of providing flexibility in the energy supply chain. This paper proposes a mathematical programming model describing the operation level of P2G processes in the energy supply chain. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the applicability of the proposed model with some remarks.