H2 Delivery Cost Analysis in Cities

This project encompasses multiple topics. 

1) The first task is the development of a model that calculates hydrogen delivery costs (transmission and distribution) for three modes (compressed gas trucks, liquid trucks and pipelines) as a function of generalized city characteristics.  The paper describes model results that identifies the lowest-cost hydrogen delivery mode for a variety of geographic conditions, station sizes and market penetration.   Compressed gas trucks are appropriate for very small station sizes and low overall demand, liquid trucks are least cost at moderate overall demand and less dense cities and pipelines are favored at high demand and for dense cities. 

2) The second task compares idealized city models for H2 delivery systems matched with real cities.  We compare idealized and real-world models for station siting and hydrogen delivery system design. This has lead to an improved Idealized City Model (ICM) for estimating delivery distances for generic cities. Using readily-available aggregated geographic data about these urban areas (including population, population density, and land area), simplifying assumptions are made in order to develop estimates of delivery system layout for a specified delivery mode.  The results of ICM provide a functional relationship between the city size, the number of refueling stations in a city and the length of pipeline and truck-based hydrogen delivery modes, which have a large influence on delivery costs.  The advantage of using ICM is that it allows for a quick estimate of the relative magnitude of costs for different delivery modes without requiring the significant data inputs (existing station locations, traffic flow data, street networks and population distribution, etc.) that are needed for a GIS based analysis. Then we can compare improved ICM and real-world models for the pipeline and truck distribution lengths and develop simplified models for calculating H2 costs for a wide range of cities.

Publications from this project:

Yang, Christopher, Joan Ogden, "Determining the lowest-cost hydrogen delivery mode," International Journal of Hydrogen Energy Volume 32, Issue 2, February 2007, Pages 268-286.

Yang, Christopher, Michael Nicholas, Joan Ogden, "Comparison of Idealized and Real-World City Station Siting Models for Hydrogen Distribution," Proceeding of the National Hydrogen Association (NHA) Annual Conference, Long Beach, California, March 2006.

Presentations from this project:

Yang, Christopher, Michael Nicholas, Joan Ogden, "Comparison of Idealized and Real-World City Station Siting Models for Hydrogen Distribution," Presentation at the National Hydrogen Association 2006 Annual Conference, Long Beach, CA, March 12 - 16, 2006.

Research Faculty: Christopher Yang, Joan Ogden
Graduate Student Researcher: Michael Nicholas
Funding: Hydrogen Pathways Program