Is the assertion laying new hydrogen pipes would be cheaper than expanding electrical lines?

Building pipes instead of wires is already 3 times less efficient per unit of energy. Moving around huge bombs that weigh more than their load is ridiculously ineficient. It's just unfathomable for the same reasons we don't move around compressed methane gas in tanker trucks - and hydrogen is even less dense. Gasoline, diesel and propane are very special cases of compact hydrocarbon fuel, you cannot replicate that for Hydrogen.

We do liquify natural gas, but that's not an option for Hydrogen, and even for gas, it's only an economic option where there are no pipes and when the energy to do it (gas price) is basically free. As an energy storage solution, it's abysmal.