ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Cities
Sec. Urban Economics
This article is part of the Research TopicDiffusion Dynamics of Sustainable Development Practices in CitiesView all 4 articles
Spatial Optimization of Green Hydrogen Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban Mobility: A Grid-Based Framework for Germany
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
- 2ProgressSoft, Amman, Jordan
- 3German Jordanian University, Amman, Jordan
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The decarbonization of urban transportation is a central pillar of sustainable city development. While hydrogen offers a promising pathway, its integration into urban and regional infrastructure faces significant spatial and safety challenges. To address this, we developed a novel geospatial optimization model that designs hydrogen supply chain networks (HSCNs) for clean transportation. The model's key novelty is its grid-based optimization framework, which integrates real pipeline and station data to simultaneously optimize hub locations for both proximity to refueling stations and access to the main pipeline network. Applied to Germany's Hydrogen Core Network (HCN), the model was formulated with distance-minimizing objective functions and solved using a clustering algorithm. When applied to Germany's operational stations, the model achieved a 23.4% reduction (2,719.6 km) in total distribution distance within optimized grids, while also capping the longest single delivery route. Furthermore, it introduces a station density threshold to determine the need for decentralized sub-storage facilities. This work provides a scalable decision-support framework for planners and policymakers, facilitating the strategic deployment of hydrogen infrastructure and accelerating its adoption for sustainable urban mobility.
Keywords: Green hydrogen, Sustainable urban infrastructure, hydrogen supply network, Spatial optimization, sustainable transportation, urban decarbonization, Diffusion of innovation
Received: 24 Sep 2025; Accepted: 20 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alzubi, Almomani and Albashir. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Emad Alzubi, emad.alzubi@uni-due.de
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