Emergent hydrogen market dynamics in sector-coupled energy systems: Integrating techno-economic simulation, game theory and agent-based modelling

Hydrogen-market research often evaluates performance within predefined institutional structures, limiting insight into how tradable markets may emerge. This study introduces HyTEGAM, an integrated techno-economic, game-theoretic and agent-based modelling framework that couples six autonomous market agents with a non-strategic hydrogen infrastructure operator. Four progressive scenarios represent market development from pilot deployment to maturity, allowing prices, allocations, storage use and learning outcomes to arise endogenously under physical and economic constraints. Across S1–S4, the operational hydrogen price decreases from €5.30 to €2.88/kg H 2 , annual production rises from 1.91 to 49.89 million kg, and demand satisfaction improves from 54.6% to 71.6%. Post-DAM imbalance-settlement costs fall by up to 95.2%, while the renewable share of electricity supplied to hydrogen production reaches 99.3%. Sensitivity and multi-seed analyses confirm robust central outcomes. HyTEGAM demonstrates that hydrogen tradability depends on coordinated supply, credible demand and flexible infrastructure rather than production expansion alone.