Developing a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle (HFCV) Energy Consumption Model for Transportation Applications

Kyoungho Ahn,Hesham A Rakha

doi:10.3390/en15020529

Abstract

This paper presents a simple hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (HFCV) energy consumption model. Simple fuel/energy consumption models have been developed and employed to estimate the energy and environmental impacts of various transportation projects for internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). However, there are few published results on HFCV energy models that can be simply implemented in transportation applications. The proposed HFCV energy model computes instantaneous energy consumption utilizing instantaneous vehicle speed, acceleration, and roadway grade as input variables. The mode accurately estimates energy consumption, generating errors of 0.86% and 2.17% relative to laboratory data for the fuel cell estimation and the total energy estimation, respectively. Furthermore, this work validated the proposed model against independent data and found that the new model accurately estimated the energy consumption, producing an error of 1.9% and 1.0% relative to empirical data for the fuel cell and the total energy estimation, respectively. The results demonstrate that transportation engineers, policy makers, automakers, and environmental engineers can use the proposed model to evaluate the energy consumption effects of transportation projects and connected and automated vehicle (CAV) transportation applications within microscopic traffic simulation models.

Highlights

The objective of this study is to develop a microscopic energy consumption model of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) that can accommodate real-time connected automated vehicle (CAV) transportation applications
This study developed a simple HFCV energy consumption model that can be im
This study developed a simple energyapplications consumption model that can be impleplemented in CAV and smartphone and/or traffic simulation software

Summary

Introduction

The objective of this study is to develop a microscopic energy consumption model of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) that can accommodate real-time connected automated vehicle (CAV) transportation applications. Similar to a battery electric vehicle (BEV), HFCVs utilize electric motors for propulsion as opposed to more “traditional” internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). The fuel cell generates electricity to power the vehicle and charges a battery. An HFCV’s driving range, as well as the amount of power and energy consumed for the vehicle’s operations, is instead determined by the hydrogen fuel tank size. The study found that a test ICEV had similar fuel consumption rates on a Freeway G cycle and a Local cycle but that BEV’s energy consumption rates on these two cycles were significantly different due to the BEV’s regenerative braking system [3,4].

Literature Review

Hydrogen Energy Consumption Data

Model Validation

NEDC cycle model estimation:

Findings

Conclusions