Max, distributed anything is far more reliable than centralised, this is a well established rule of thumb. Also, the connection materials required and the power losses still in those, are far higher in a centralised power grid. Of course it would be wrong to just shut down a national grid as a sudden event, but I am sure it will be found most economical and practical to just wind them down over a period of time, as each capital fueled energy plant is found to be no longer viable, compared with what is effectively less-than-free energy of solar. The efficiency of hydrogen is still being established, but it doesn't look bad when all is taken into account, including the energy that actually goes into creating the fuel. Remember it took millions of years of Joules of sunlight to create fossil fuels, compared with a few hours/kg for hydrogen.
Also, the hydrogen is hard product directly interchangeable for currency which needs to be continuously issued for free, to keep pace with that valuable product.
I am working on some System models now, towards maybe some useful community tools for designing end-to-end money-fuel trees.
It might seem like a long way away before things like this will be needed, but how long now, until we start feeling the pain of lack of affordable energy, and even hunger. Did you know we can now create food also directly from hydrogen electrolysis processes which are not far removed from the process to create hydrogen?
At last we are starting to see the light, literally, it seems to me.
