Early Southern California Study

While many studies have looked at the economics of a mature hydrogen infrastructure, relatively few have focused on the early rollout of commercial fuel cell vehicles. Early hydrogen costs are expected to be significantly higher than mature costs and may constitute a serious hurdle to the development of a full hydrogen infrastructure. In particular, individual hydrogen stations may need to sell hydrogen at a very high cost or require significant government funding to realize a reasonable ROI over a 5-7 year time scale.

This study will focus on the hydrogen infrastructure necessary to support an initial rollout of commercial fuel cell, light duty vehicles in the Los Angeles, CA region over a 5-7 year period. Los Angeles was chosen because automakers will likely target that region as an initial fuel cell vehicle market; furthermore, a significant number of hydrogen fueling stations are currently operating there or are planned for that location in the near future. Existing hydrogen infrastructure would supply some of the hydrogen demand, and therefore, that region will require fewer station installations during the early rollout period.

The study will develop several local hydrogen demand scenarios based on discussions with various groups in the hydrogen and fuel cell community, present and expected hydrogen vehicle programs, and projections from the literature. These demand scenarios will determine the amount of hydrogen necessary to support the early light duty fleet in the Los Angeles region over the 5-7 year period. Based on the difference between the hydrogen demand and the supply from current and planned stations, we estimate the necessary additional supply as a function of time.

Publications from this project:

Nicholas, Michael, Jonathan Weinert, Marshall Miller, "Hydrogen Station Economic Analysis and Siting in Southern California," Proceeding of the 21st Annual Electric Vehicle Symposium, Monaco, April 2005.

Presentations from this project:

Nicholas, Michael, Jonathan Weinert, Marshall Miller, "Hydrogen Station Economic Analysis and Siting in Southern California," 21st Annual Electric Vehicle Symposium, Monaco, April 2 – 6, 2005.

Research Faculty: Marc W. Melaina, Marshall Miller
Graduate Student Researcher: Michael Nicholas, Jonathan Weinert
Funding: Hydrogen Pathways Program