Novel Sustainability Assessment Methodology with Alternative Use Impact Accounting: Application on Use of Hydrogen in Transportation Sector

This study presents the application of a new sustainability assessment methodology. It aims to improve the information that can be obtained from a sustainability assessment including the concept of alternative usage impact. To prove the effectiveness of this methodology three different hydrogen production methodologies considering its consumption in transportation sector is the case of study. The methodologies considered are Steam Methane Reform using natural gas, Proton Exchange Membrane electrolysis, one using grid electricity and the other study case using central tower solar power plant electricity from the PS10 facility. While separately, green hydrogen is the technology with less environmental impact, when considering the full system and the impact of the green hydrogen on the rest of the resources the integration of green hydrogen technology is not the most environmentally sustainable. Similar behavior is observed in the economic and technical fields. The different accounting of combinations of technologies and the impact on the resource which is not used provides the sustainability performance of the overall system. These results show that in order to account the all impacts taking place in a energy technology integration, its impact on the rest of resources and uses, provide more valuable information.