The "H₂ Guide Lower Saxony" examines how a future hydrogen-based energy system in Lower Saxony could effectively be designed, which technical variants are beneficial and which legal, ecological and economic aspects have an impact. As a result, the project provides a closed and comprehensive methodology to design and evaluate combinable storage, transport, conversion and utilization processes, which can be used to specify Lower Saxony's hydrogen implementation strategy.

For this purpose, the individual phases of the hydrogen chain are considered by model approaches on different levels of detail and are analyzed and evaluated with regard to the aspects mentioned above. The project deals with the different aspects of a hydrogen economy on three conceptual levels: The technical level addresses questions regarding the underground storage of hydrogen in caverns and pore storage facilities as well as the conversion of hydrogen into hydrocarbons and ammonia. The socio-ecological level focuses on environmental impacts and ecological assessments. It also addresses the issue of energy regulatory frameworks for hydrogen facilities. The system level then summarizes the results, puts them into a temporal and spatial context by means of scenario analyses, and shows which business models are both economically viable and ecologically sensible.

All investigations take into account the special conditions that predestine Lower Saxony for a pioneering role in the development of a hydrogen economy and can rely on intensive support from a large number of industrial partners.