A Low-Carbon Scheduling Strategy for Electricity-Heat-Hydrogen Integrated Energy Systems Considering Equivalent Energy Storage

To address the prominent issues of insufficient utilization of user-side flexibility resources and the low degree of energy coupling in park-level electricity-heat-hydrogen integrated energy systems, this paper proposes a low-carbon scheduling strategy incorporating the concept of equivalent energy storage. First, user-side adjustable resources are considered, and the dispersed regulation capabilities among multiple user-side entities are aggregated, thereby introducing the concept of equivalent energy storage (EES). Second, a multi-mode coordinated operation framework is established for park-level multi-energy systems, which integrates electrical energy storage, hydrogen energy storage, and hydrogen-blended gas combined heat and power units. This framework characterizes the coupling relationships of electricity-heat-hydrogen energy flows, while a stepwise carbon trading mechanism is introduced. Together with EES, user-side adjustable resources are aggregated to reduce the system’s dependence on high-carbon units. Finally, case studies are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. The results demonstrate that, compared with the case without EES, the proposed method reduces the total operating cost of the system by 13.04% and achieves a 29.62% reduction in carbon emissions under the constraints