Abstract
The latest pre-production vehicles on the market show that the major technical challenges posed by integrating a fuel cell system (FCS) within a vehicle—compactness, safety, autonomy, reliability, cold starting—have been met. Regarding the ongoing maturity of fuel cell systems dedicated to road transport, the present article examines the advances still needed to move from a functional but niche product to a mainstream consumer product. It seeks to address difficulties not covered by more traditional innovation approaches. At least in long-distance heavy-duty vehicles, fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are going to play a key role in the path to zero-emissions in one or two decades. Hence the present study also addresses the structuring elements of the complete chain: the latter includes the production, storage and distribution of hydrogen. Green hydrogen appears to be one of the potential uses of renewable energies. The greener the electricity is, the greater the advantage for hydrogen since it permits to economically store large energy quantities on seasonal rhythms. Moreover, natural hydrogen might also become an economic reality pushing the fuel cell vehicle to be a competitive and environmentally friendly alternative to the battery electric vehicle. Based on its own functional benefits for on board systems, hydrogen in combination with the fuel cell will achieve a large-scale use of hydrogen in road transport, as soon as renewable energies become more widespread. Its market will expand from large driving range and heavy load vehicles.
Highlights
Fuel cell (FC) applied research in recent decades and fuel cell system (FCS) deployments in niche markets have significantly advanced proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC)technology
Considering 500,000 systems⁄yr, FCS cost was assessed at $124/kWelec in 2006 while in 2017 this value was reduced to $45/kWelec. It is quite close from the cost target enabling fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) to compete with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles (i.e., $30⁄kWelec ) [1]
The FCS cost mainly depends on the following components: (i) the MEA and the membrane and its catalyst, (ii) the bipolar plates (BPs), (iii) the auxiliaries and (iv) the tank and associated protection and distribution systems
Summary
Fuel cell (FC) applied research in recent decades and fuel cell system (FCS) deployments in niche markets have significantly advanced proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Heavy road transportation and cars with intensive-use (e.g., taxis and delivery vans) are identified as the FCV key sectors in the future zero emission vehicles market [2] Beyond these important points related to the functionality and social acceptability of the product constituted by the single vehicle, it is important to consider the complete system from the point of view of its life cycle. They show the potential of hydrogen road transportation option highly depends on the H2 production routes either in term of future technology advances and since avoiding the limited energy efficiency of the electrolyser.
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