New ICCT Report On European Trucking Has Deadly Flaw Favoring Hydrogen

The Worldwide Council on Clear Transportation (ICCT) tries to do good and unbiased work. Just lately it failed badly, reporting that hydrogen gas cell vehicles in some classes may attain parity with diesel in 2030, and have parity and even be cheaper in 2040 in all classes. Additional, it acknowledged that by 2040, for some use circumstances it could be aggressive with battery electrical vehicles.

The issue is that the underlying price of electrical energy for hydrogen and for charging batteries was not the identical, not even remotely, regardless of each eventualities utilizing electrical energy at charging or refueling stations. It was totally different by an element of three.

A examine by the ICCT from February 2022 by Yuanrong Zhou and Stephanie Searle discovered that the value of inexperienced hydrogen manufactured regionally at hydrogen refueling stations may attain €6 per kilogram in 2030. Whereas a conclusion of the report, that manufacturing hydrogen on website from grid-delivered electrical energy can be least expensive, was correct the assumptions that led to the value level are unsupportable. The authors used country-specific wind and solar energy buy settlement costs with restricted adders as an alternative of economic or industrial grid costs for electrical energy. Consequently, their worth per kWh for electrical energy was nicely beneath €0.10, doubtless within the €0.06 – €0.07 vary. The report itself excludes the precise numbers that they used.

Underlying prices per kilogram of hydrogen from that modeling had been utilized in a simply launched ICCT report by two totally different ICCT researchers, Hussein Basma and Felipe Rodríguez. That report in contrast the whole prices of possession of various power pathways for trucking in Europe, with a concentrate on figuring out what essentially the most price efficient pathway for decarbonization can be.

Unsurprisingly, they discovered that battery electrical trucking was least expensive in all classes. Very surprisingly, they discovered that hydrogen gas cell trucking was very low cost as nicely. Hydrogen Perception’s headline is pretty much as good because it will get given the issues:

Hydrogen vehicles can be dearer to personal and function than battery equivalents in Europe till not less than 2040: report
However fuel-cell vehicles will attain price parity with diesel as quickly as 2030, says Worldwide Council on Clear Transportation paper

Hydrogen Perception is by far essentially the most balanced of the hydrogen-specific media shops, and it’s merely reporting what the report says. Sadly, the report is flawed, so the headline is flawed.

Basma and Rodríguez relied on their colleague’s price of hydrogen when manufactured, saved and compressed on the refueling station for his or her report. And for battery electrical vehicles, they relied on the industrial or industrial common price of electrical energy per kWh, between €0.21 and €0.24.

Consequently, their price of power for hydrogen at precisely the identical level within the distribution grid utilizing precisely the identical electrons is a 3rd or 1 / 4 of the price of the power for battery electrical autos.

That one thing was deeply flawed ought to have been clear to Basma, Rodríguez and their reviewers, Chelsea Baldino, Oscar Delgado, Peter Mock, Tianlin Niu, Rohit Nepali, and Nikita Pavlenko. The first interactive diagram that the ICCT created confirmed that the price of power per kilometer for battery electrical was €0.11 in comparison with €0.17 for hydrogen in a single case in 2030 and dropped to €0.11 to €0.12 in 2040 in one other case, a mere 10% dearer for the power.

As a reminder, the most effective case situation for manufacturing inexperienced hydrogen has an effectivity of roughly 70%. When 100 kWh of electrical energy is used to show hydrogen into water, in different phrases, solely 70 kWh of electrical energy is embodied within the hydrogen. After which in essentially the most environment friendly gas cell, solely 60% of the power within the hydrogen is returned as electrical energy to drive the wheels.

Ignoring all different course of losses and capital prices, that signifies that at greatest 42% of the power within the electrical energy could possibly be returned to the wheels. In actuality, it’s worse.

The Transport & Surroundings graphic above reveals the precise effectivity losses for inexperienced hydrogen. Even assuming that the manufacturing it regionally on the hydrogen refueling station reduces the 26% power losses of transmission, distribution and storage right down to 10%, the very best case situation is 27% of the power returned, in comparison with the 73% for battery electrical autos.

The very best case utilizing precisely the identical electrical energy in precisely the identical place because the ICCT report does ought to present that the price of power for a hydrogen gas cell car is 3 times larger than for a battery electrical car.

There’s actually no method round this basic thermodynamic actuality with out rewriting the legal guidelines of physics. And but the ratio of power prices within the ICCT report simply launched present power prices which are just one.5 occasions as excessive and even 1.1 occasions as excessive. This can be a manifestly apparent visible anomaly that the ICCT authors and all of their reviewers missed. Eyeballing it ought to have made them notice that there was an issue.

And to be clear, making storing, compressing and pumping hydrogen requires way more costly capital prices on the refueling station than for battery electrical autos. Electrolyzers are very costly at current, and even when they fall in worth drastically, they are going to nonetheless be dearer than any element at an present truck refueling station. The pumps which can pressurize the hydrogen to 700 occasions the strain of the ambiance at sea stage are additionally very costly. The pumps that drivers use to pump hydrogen into their vehicles are additionally very costly (and as a result of nature of the interplay, freeze stable to the car a exceptional proportion of the time).

Megachargers for electrical energy energy supply, by comparability, are less expensive. And earlier than anybody says, “What concerning the grid growth essential to supply the electrical energy!”, keep in mind that in each ICCT eventualities, electrical energy is being delivered to the refueling station, however within the hydrogen case, 3 times as a lot electrical energy is being delivered. The price of beefing up the distribution grid assuming a hydrogen for power use case is considerably larger than for a battery electrical use case.

Equally, leveling electrical energy demand throughout a 24/7 cycle to do price arbitrage and cut back peak demand additionally favors battery electrical use circumstances. The capital price of the electrolyzer requires excessive utilization, so it could possibly’t be run at occasions of low electrical energy charges with out rising the associated fee per kilogram of hydrogen considerably. As such, the identical or bigger battery buffer would doubtless be required to stability demand with least expensive provide as for the battery electrical trucking resolution.

It’s unlucky that the ICCT has made this apparent and fundamental mistake and didn’t catch it. As famous, they attempt to do good work, and will not be one of many many hydrogen for power biased organizations making an attempt to shoehorn hydrogen into use circumstances that it can not and by no means will have the ability to compete in, like trucking. However this report used electrical energy a 3rd the value for hydrogen and consequently offers care and feeding to the biased organizations pushing it, even when it nonetheless discovered batteries had been cheaper.

The ICCT and authors ought to publicly retract this report. They need to assess all lifecycle trucking stories to see if the error is pervasive and withdraw any which have additionally made this error. They need to rework their numbers and problem a brand new and correct report. I belief that they are going to.