Modelling of hydrogen infrastructure for vehicle refuelling in London

One of the principal barriers to the widespread use of hydrogen as a road transport fuel is the need for a refuelling infrastructure to be established. The lack of an adequate refuelling infrastructure would severely inhibit an uptake of hydrogen vehicles. On the other hand, without significant penetration of these vehicles, the demand for hydrogen would be insufficient to make a widespread conventional refuelling infrastructure economic. The infrastructure is likely to develop initially in cities, due to the high concentration of vehicles and the anticipated air quality benefits of a switch to hydrogen as a road transport fuel. While trial schemes such as the Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE) bus project will establish initial hydrogen refuelling sites, it is not clear how a transition to a widespread refuelling infrastructure will occur. Indeed, the number of possible different ways and scales of producing and distributing hydrogen means that the possible configurations for such an infrastructure are almost endless. Imperial College London is examining transition strategies for a hydrogen infrastructure for vehicle refuelling in London under a project funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Imperial has five project partners from industry and local government to assist in this study: the Greater London Authority (GLA), BP, BOC, BMW and Air Products. This paper presents initial results from technical modelling of hydrogen infrastructure technologies and how they could be deployed to provide an initial facility for the refuelling of hydrogen fuel-cell buses in London. The results suggest that the choice of H2 production technology can have significant effects on when the infrastructure would be installed, and the timing of hydrogen production, and bus refuelling.