Fuel cell drive for urban freight transport in comparison to diesel and battery electric drives: a case study of the food retailing industry in Berlin

John Kenneth Winkler,Kai Martins-Turner,Dietmar Göhlich,Alexander Grahle,Anne Magdalene Syré

doi:10.1186/s12544-022-00525-6

John Kenneth Winkler, Kai Martins-Turner + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12544-022-00525-6

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Abstract

The option of decarbonizing urban freight transport using battery electric vehicle (BEV) seems promising. However, there is currently a strong debate whether fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) might be the better solution. The question arises as to how a fleet of FCEV influences the operating cost, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and primary energy demand in comparison to BEVs and to Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle (ICEV). To investigate this, we simulate the urban food retailing as a representative share of urban freight transport using a multi-agent transport simulation software. Synthetic routes as well as fleet size and composition are determined by solving a vehicle routing problem. We compute the operating costs using a total cost of ownership analysis and the use phase emissions as well as primary energy demand using the well to wheel approach. While a change to BEV results in 17–23% higher costs compared to ICEV, using FCEVs leads to 22–57% higher costs. Assuming today’s electricity mix, we show a GHG emission reduction of 25% compared to the ICEV base case when using BEV. Current hydrogen production leads to a GHG reduction of 33% when using FCEV which however cannot be scaled to larger fleets. Using current electricity in electrolysis will increase GHG emission by 60% compared to the base case. Assuming 100% renewable electricity for charging and hydrogen production, the reduction from FCEVs rises to 73% and from BEV to 92%. The primary energy requirement for BEV is in all cases lower and for higher compared to the base case. We conclude that while FCEV have a slightly higher GHG savings potential with current hydrogen, BEV are the favored technology for urban freight transport from an economic and ecological point of view, considering the increasing shares of renewable energies in the grid mix.

Highlights

Introduction and motivationCommercial road vehicles including buses cause 35.6% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the GermanWinkler et al European Transport Research Review (2022) 14:2 a short refueling time of only a few minutes and a dieselequivalent range [5]
It should be mentioned that the battery electric vehicle (BEV) cases require between 1.5 and 3% less vehicles than the Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle (ICEV) and fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) cases
ICEVs operated with diesel provided the base case

Summary

Introduction

Introduction and motivationCommercial road vehicles including buses cause 35.6% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the GermanWinkler et al European Transport Research Review (2022) 14:2 a short refueling time of only a few minutes and a dieselequivalent range [5]. 1.1 Technical requirements Currently, there are mainly prototypes of FC trucks These include light 7.5t trucks such as the Fuso Vision F-Cell or heavy-duty semitrailer tractors such as the Nikola Motors Tre, which is expected to be ready for series production by 2023 [7, 8]. According to [9], fuel cells in buses have already reached a lifetime of 25,000 operating hours. This is expected to be sufficient for most trucks to avoid an expensive change of the FC. Six of them offer hydrogen pressure of 350 bar and are compatible for fuel cell buses and trucks [13]

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