Applications & Pathways

We combine previously separate models of Northern European power markets local district heating and cooling (DHC²) systems and biomass supply in a single modelling framework to study local and system level impacts of bioenergy technologies in phasing out fossil fuels from a DHC system of the Finnish capital. We model multiple future scenarios and assess the impacts on energy security flexibility provision economic performance and emissions. In the case of Helsinki heat only boiler is a robust solution from economic and climate perspective but reduces local electricity self-sufficiency. Combined heat and power solution is more valuable investment for the system than for the city indicating a conflict of interest and biased results in system level models. Bringing a biorefinery near the city to utilize excess heat would reduce emissions and increase investment's profitability but biomass availability might be a bigger limiting factor. Our results show that the availability of domestic biomass resources constrains bio-based technologies in Southern Finland and further highlights the importance of considering both local and system level impacts. Novel option to boost biorefinery's production with hydrogen from excess electricity is beneficial with increasing shares of wind power.

The diffusion of electric vehicles in Italy has started but some complications weight its spread. At present hybrid technology is the most followed by users due particularly to socioeconomic factors such as cost of investment and range anxiety. After a deep discussion of the Italian scenario the aim of the paper is to recognize whether fuel cell technology may be an enabling solution to overcome pollution problems and respect for the environment. The opportunity to use fuel cells to store electric energy is quite fascinating—the charging times will be shortened and heavy passenger transport should be effortless challenged. On the basis of the present history and by investigating the available information this work reports the current e-mobility state in Italy and forecasts the cities in which a fuel cell charging infrastructure should be more profitable with the intention of granting a measured outlook on the plausible development of this actual niche market.

Due to the low efficiency and high pollution of conventional internal combustion engine vehicles the fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles are expected to play a key role in the future of clean energy transportation attributed to the long driving range short hydrogen refueling time and environmental advantages. The development of energy management strategies has an important impact on the economy and durability but most strategies ignore the aging of fuel cells and the corresponding impact on hydrogen consumption. In this paper a rule-based fuzzy control strategy is proposed based on the constructed data-driven online estimation model of fuel cell health. Then a genetic algorithm is used to optimize this fuzzy controller where the objective function is designed to consider both the economy and durability by combining the hydrogen consumption cost and the degradation cost characterized by the fuel cell health status. Considering that the rule-based strategy is more sensitive to operating conditions this paper uses an artificial neural network for predictive control. The results are compared with those obtained from the genetic algorithm optimized fuzzy controller and are found to be very similar where the prediction accuracy is assessed using MAPE RMSE and 10-fold cross-validation. Experiments show that the developed strategy has a good generalization capability for variable driving cycles.

Integrated water electrolysis is a core principle of new process configurations for decarbonized heavy industries. Water electrolysis generates H2 and O2 and involves an exchange of thermal energy. In this manuscript we investigate specific traditional heavy industrial processes that have previously been performed in nitrogen-rich air environments. We show that the individual process streams may be holistically integrated to establish new decarbonized industrial processes. In new process configurations CO2 capture is facilitated by avoiding inert gases in reactant streams. The primary energy required to drive electrolysis may be obtained from emerging renewable power sources (wind solar etc.) which have enjoyed substantial industrial development and cost reductions over the last decade. The new industrial designs uniquely harmonize the intermittency of renewable energy allowing chemical energy storage. We show that fully integrated electrolysis promotes the viability of decarbonized industrial processes. Specifically new process designs uniquely exploit intermittent renewable energy for CO2 conversion enabling thermal integration H2 and O2 utilization and sub-process harmonization for economic feasibility. The new designs are increasingly viable for decarbonizing ferric iron reduction municipal waste incineration biomass gasification fermentation pulp production biogas upgrading and calcination and are an essential step forward in reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

Driven by a small number of niche markets and several decades of application research fuel cell systems (FCS) are gradually reaching maturity to the point where many players are questioning the interest and intensity of its deployment in the transport sector in general. This article aims to shed light on this debate from the road transport perspective. It focuses on the description of the fuel cell vehicle (FCV) in order to understand its assets limitations and current paths of progress. These vehicles are basically hybrid systems combining a fuel cell and a lithium-ion battery and different architectures are emerging among manufacturers who adopt very different levels of hybridization. The main opportunity of Fuel Cell Vehicles is clearly their design versatility based on the decoupling of the choice of the number of Fuel Cell modules and hydrogen tanks. This enables manufacturers to meet various specifications using standard products. Upcoming developments will be in line with the crucial advantage of Fuel Cell Vehicles: intensive use in terms of driving range and load capacity. Over the next few decades long-distance heavy-duty vehicles and fleets of taxis or delivery vehicles will develop based on range extender or mild hybrid architectures and enable the hydrogen sector to mature the technology from niche markets to a large-scale market.

The upcoming stricter limitations on both pollutant and greenhouse gases emissions represent a challenge for the shipping sector. The entire ship design process requires an approach to innovation with a particular focus on both the fuel choice and the power generation system. Among the possible alternatives natural gas and hydrogen based propulsion systems seem to be promising in the medium and long term. Nonetheless natural gas and hydrogen storage still represents a problem in terms of cargo volume reduction. This paper focuses on the storage issue considering compressed gases and presents an innovative solution which has been developed in the European project GASVESSEL® that allows to store gaseous fuels with an energy density higher than conventional intermediate pressure containment systems. After a general overview of natural gas and hydrogen as fuels for shipping a case study of a small Roll-on/Rolloff passenger ferry retrofit is proposed. The study analyses the technical feasibility of the installation of a hybrid power system with batteries and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells fuelled by hydrogen. In particular a process simulation model has been implemented to assess the quantity of hydrogen that can be stored on board taking into account boundary conditions such as filling time on shore storage capacity and cylinder wall temperature. The simulation results show that if the fuel cells system is run continuously at steady state to cover the energy need for one day of operation 140 kg of hydrogen are required. Using the innovative pressure cylinder at a storage pressure of 300 bar the volume required by the storage system assessed on the basis of the containment system outer dimensions is resulted to be 15.2 m3 with a weight of 2.5 ton. Even if the innovative type of pressure cylinder allows to reach an energy density higher than conventional intermediate pressure cylinders the volume necessary to store a quantity of energy typical for the shipping sector is many times higher than that required by conventional fuels today used. The analysis points out as expected that the filling process is critical to maximize the stored hydrogen mass and that it is critical to measure the temperature of the cylinder walls in order not to exceed the material limits. Nevertheless for specific application such as the one considered in the paper the introduction of gaseous hydrogen as fuel can be considered for implementing zero local emission propulsion system in the medium term.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) can play a key role in accelerating the electrification of road transport. Specifically they offer longer driving ranges and shorter refuelling times relative to Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) while reducing needs for space-intensive public charging infrastructure. Although the maturity and market penetration of hydrogen is currently trailing batteries transport planners in several countries are looking to both technologies to reduce carbon emissions and air pollution. Home to the world’s largest on-road fleet of FCEVs California is one such jurisdiction. Experiences in California provide an ideal opportunity to address a gap in literature whereby barriers to FCEV diffusion are well understood but knowledge on actual strategies to overcome these has lacked. This study thus examines governance strategies in California to accelerate the production and diffusion of FCEVs key outcomes lessons learned and unresolved challenges. Evidence is sourced from 19 expert interviews and an examination of diverse documents. Strategies are examined from four perspectives: (i) supply-side (i.e. stimulation of vehicle production) (ii) infrastructure (i.e. construction of refuelling stations and hydrogen production) (iii) demand-side (i.e. stimulation of vehicle adoption) and (iv) institutional (i.e. cross-cutting measures to facilitate collaboration innovation and cost-reduction). Findings reveal a comprehensive mix of stringent regulation market and consumer incentives and public–private collaboration. However significant challenges remain for spurring the development of fuel cell transport in line with initial ambitions. Highlighting these provides important cues for public policy to accelerate the deployment of FCEVs and hydrogen in California and elsewhere.

The UK government heat strategy is partially based on decarbonisation pathways from the UK MARKAL energy system model. We review how heat provision is represented in UK MARKAL identifying a number of shortcomings and areas for improvement. We present a completely revised model with improved estimations of future heat demands and a consistent representation of all heat generation technologies. This model represents all heat delivery infrastructure for the first time and uses dynamic growth constraints to improve the modelling of transitions according to innovation theory. Our revised model incorporates a simplified housing stock model which is used produce highly-refined decarbonisation pathways for residential heat provision. We compare this disaggregated model against an aggregated equivalent which is similar to the existing approach in UK MARKAL. Disaggregating does not greatly change the total residential fuel consumption in two scenarios so the benefits of disaggregation will likely be limited if the focus of a study is elsewhere. Yet for studies of residential heat disaggregation enables us to vary consumer behaviour and government policies on different house types as well as highlighting different technology trends across the stock in comparison with previous aggregated versions of the model.

A greenhouse containing an integrated system of photovoltaic panels a water electrolyzer fuel cells and a geothermal heat pump was set up to investigate suitable solutions for a power system based on solar energy and hydrogen feeding a self-sufficient geothermal-heated greenhouse. The electricity produced by the photovoltaic source supplies the electrolyzer; the manufactured hydrogen gas is held in a pressure tank. In these systems the electrolyzer is a crucial component; the technical challenge is to make it work regularly despite the irregularity of the solar source. The focus of this paper is to study the performance and the real energy efficiency of the electrolyzer analyzing its operational data collected under different operating conditions affected by the changeable solar radiant energy characterizing the site where the experimental plant was located. The analysis of the measured values allowed evaluation of its suitability for the agricultural requirements such as greenhouse heating. On the strength of the obtained result a new layout of the battery bank has been designed and exemplified to improve the performance of the electrolyzer. The evaluations resulting from this case study may have a genuine value therefore assisting in further studies to better understand these devices and their associated technologies.

The approach developed aims to identify the methodology that will be used to deliver the minimum cost for hydrogen infrastructure deployment using a mono-objective linear optimisation. It focuses on minimizing both capital and operation costs of the hydrogen transportation based on transportation via truck which represents the main focus of this paper and a cost-minimal pipeline system in the case of France and Germany. The paper explains the mathematical model describing the link between the hydrogen production via electrolysers and the distribution for mobility needs. The main parameters and the assumed scenario framework are explained. Subsequently the transportation of hydrogen via truck using different states of aggregation is analysed as well as the transformation and storage of hydrogen. This is used finally to build a linear programming aiming to minimize the sum of costs of hydrogen transportation between the different nodes and transformation/storage within the nodes.