Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Becoming Too Big to Ignore

Some of us have a life outside of work and don't get home until late in the evening. Not getting home until 10 means leaving for work the next day without a full recharge using L1.

 

But hydrogen is the most common element in the universe.

All those electrical outlets just means it takes willful ignorance to get stranded without charge in a BEV. Just like it does to run out of gas in a typical car. The main point of pointing out all those plugs is to point out that electricity is everywhere in this country. If you can't get it, you likely can't get gasoline or diesel either.

Hydrogen simply isn't available now. Perhaps at some future date, but not now. Plug ins can work for many now with all the benefits hydrogen might give us.

The grid wasn't build to provide power for cars. It was built for lighting, cooking, heating, cooling, manufacturing, food production, entertaining, computing, etc.

Faster BEV charging can be handled by capacitor, battery, or other onsite energy storage to provide buffering. No need to upgrade the grid for that. The upgrades will come for all the rest of the uses of electricity.

Above ground wires are simply there because of cost. If there wasn't a risk of fire and explosion, natural gas and hydrogen lines would be strung up on poles too. In secure locations, the pipelines are above ground.

 

I didn't ignore that fact, I said it had no basis in the calculation. Perhaps I need to spell out the calculation, since there is no magic. I should also clarify that additional investments may need to be made if solar becomes more than 5% on the grid, but these are less expensive than building them in each home. Cherry picking would be picking a case that is not reflective, but I didn't pick an obscure case at all.

If you need X kwh of power a year, and produce 1.1X on grid tied solar panels then your net fossil burn + the grids fossil burn, should be less than if you were off grid. When you are producing excess power it goes on the grid, the grid operator reduces fossil burn. When you need more power than the system provides, the grid operator increases fossil burn. The net effect after grid losses should be a net of less fossil burn than if you were not attached to the grid. The solar often comes at peak demand, which increases grid reliabilty, and lowers electricity cost for everyone. Most net metering requires paying a grid charge and a small amount of equipment. That 10% excess that you need to make sure you are net zero is often paid for at a low cost from the utility offseting some of the grid charge.

On the other hand if you detach from the grid, just 10% extra power won't cut it. you need a lot more for cloudy days, for bad weather. Then you need back up, batteries or hydrogen or a generator, and if its hydrogen or batteries even more extra to account for the ineffiency. If its a generator you need to account for that fuel. After all that you are paying more than the grid charge, and ... not contributing to grid improvements and low income people on the grid. You also are probably making the rest of the grid burn more net fossil fuel without your solar.

I was talking about the benefits of distributed power, not economies of scale. But sure add those in and it even makes less sense to go off grid. If we need batteries or hydrogen/fuel cell/eletrolyzer to store the energy of excess renewables at the wrong time, they are much cheaper at the utility level.

Then definitely buy a L2. I just was following USBs logic, and chevy says many are just on L1. Either way your phev is going to be much more convent charging and filling with gas than trying to find hydrogen in Minnesota.

I didn't get home until after midnight last night. Then again I only drove about 15 miles, and went jogging this morning (clear the cobwebs before work). There was a nice empty L2 charger in the park. I have no idea when or where anyone will build a public hydrogen station here.

 

Ok, I did the rough numbers.

During the last 5 years the US population grew an estimated 4% from 309.35 million to 322 million, according to Wikipedia.

Solar generation was 4,500 GWh in 2010 and 21,000 GWh in 2013 and has been consistently growing about 65% every year for the last several years. There is no reason to think that has slowed down during the last two years since several very large utility PV farms came online during the last 2 years and other trends have generally continued.

If you extend the solar trend it would reach about 57,000 GWh for 2015 or about 52,000 GWh in growth since 2010.

52,000 GWh / 12 months / 12,650,000 in population growth would be around 340 kWh per month for each additional person. And that's starting from small total solar generation levels. I'd say that's roughly keeping up with US population growth since 2010.

Since US population is increasing about 1% per year and solar generation is increasing about 65% per year I think we've got things covered.

From page 64 of:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/62580.pdf

 

And lets not forget new wind either. Posted this pic in another thread: another shipment of wind turbines being unloaded here along the Texas gulf coast.



Texas established a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) in 1999, amending it in 2005. The current RPS requires 5,880 MW of renewable energy by 2015. The state also has a target of reaching 10,000 MW of renewable capacity by 2025, a target that the wind energy industry met in 2010.

http://awea.files.cms-plus.com/FileDownloads/pdfs/texas.pdf

 

2 issues

1) solar off-grid versus on-grid. Here on grid for sure is better to reduce fossil fuels if it is managed even close to the same and not remort. solar off grid in remote areas or places that only need power during sunshine.

2) Is solar keeping up with population growth. Well yes, but its tiny. Even today its only estimated to be at around 0.4%-1.5% of electricity in the US. Its hard to estimate because some big markets like california don't really count roof top solar which gives that low 0.4% estimate. .
What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

The better question is why people seem to focus so much on solar. There is a much less expensive renewable for charging cars and making hydrogen.

Yep at 4.4%, wind is a much bigger part of the renewable picture, and it fits well with grid tied solar and fast cycling ccgt natural gas. These 3 actually are growing faster than the increase in demand. Wind is not growing at as high of a rate as solar, but it is increasing faster percentage wise. As these grow, coal shrinks, and less efficient steam natural gas is getting retired.

Say there were 5 million plug-ins doing an average of 13,000 miles electric miles @ 100 mpge That will take 22 TWH, please check my math. Last year wind produced about 180 TWh, renewables can definitely grow faster than plug-ins for the next 5 years, plus population. The trick is to get to the goals of the clean power plan.

 

The more you spend, the more you save!

Please provide links to credible data in support of your assertion that "increasing the recharging speed means lowering efficiency".

Actually, 120V Level 1 charging is noticeably less efficient than 240v Level 2 charging. And, 6.6 kW 240v charging is typically more efficient than 3.3 kW 240v charging. After that, charging efficiency roughly levels off. Charging at higher voltages means lower current and thus generally lower heat generation. Also, there is fixed energy overhead caused by keeping the car's computers running in order to monitor the charging process. Faster charging means those computers are on for a shorter time.

For DC charging, the AC to DC conversion is moved outside of the car and the battery is charged at voltages higher than 240. For instance, ChargePoint says it's fast DC charger is 96% efficient:

https://www.chargepoint.com/files/Efecec_QC_50_DC_fast_charger_datasheet.pdf

As for fast charging causing battery degradation, the evidence is that it causes only a small amount of added degradation to Nissan LEAFs when they are charged entirely via DC and the LEAF has no active battery cooling.

Finally, the grid is going to go through substantial changes over the next several decades as part of ramping up renewable energy due to climate change concerns. Any changes made in support of BEV charging will only be a small part of that. And actually, BEVs may well save money overall by helping to soak up large amounts of daytime solar and possibly helping to provide grid battery balancing through vehicle-to-grid communication.

 

How does that apply to the PHVs that AustinGreen was talking about?
They don't need faster recharging on long trips, and the liquid fuels means refueling faster than hydrogen when they are on such long trips.

 

Sure right now California spending is about $67,000/car ($40M for 600 fcv on the road, yeah lets not count the old doe money). That has to go down. In 2 years probably anouther $40M in california money ($80M cumulative), and maybe 4000 fcv cumulative, that makes it only $20,000/fcv

But volume can only make up so much. And the amount per car just went up from estimates a year ago, because .... stations cost more than they thought when they were passing the spending bill. That is true in Japan, California, and Germany. You can't make up a money loser with volume volume volume. Higher volume simply means more government money is needed.

To reduce hydrogen costs per kg, you need a technological breakthrough and volume. We may get one. But with today's cost structure, volume just means you need to tax and spend more.

On the hand why would not scaling up help economics of plug-ins. Unlike hydrogen stations battery costs have been falling faster than expected. It appears volume is moving us to 14%/year decrease in cost, versus the 7% projected. It looks like they will be well bellow the doe's target of $200/kwh in 2020. There are over 1000 L3 locations and its growing.

 

Huh. Work the numbers before using that claim. A 0.7% (and decreasing) growth rate has insignificant impact on electricity utilization growth. The standard of living costs and energy use inefficiencies are orders of magnitude more important.

 

What changes need to be made to the grid just for EV use? There is plenty of grid improvements needed for handling electricity generation and distribution in general, but I know of no special grid changes needed for EV use. As I have stated before, Air conditioning is a far, far bigger issue than EV power consumption will ever be for many, many decades. Look at the size of the AC units on top of every big multistory building in the USA. Those units are monsters of electricity consumption. A Tesla supercharger station turning on is barely detectable to one of those AC units turning on. There will never be as many supercharging stations as big AC units. Work the numbers if you don't believe me. I did and it opened my eyes. This does not even include the reality of most EVs will be fueled when the grid is not at max load.

 

What is the needed subsidy per car for hydrogen? How much does it cost to install L2 at apartment complexes?

The lowest cost per car station that is going to california is the Linde ic 90 that can pump out 350 kg h2/day. I do not know the unsubsidized cost but the subsidy is around $2 M. 7 of the first 57 stations are this type, the rest are all 200 kg or less, and cost more per car. If we assume 15,000 miles per year, 70% utilization, 15,000 miles per car, this station can fuel 400 fcv. That works out to $5000/fcv if you can get utilization that high, before additional fuel subsidies.

On the other hand according to austin energy, my local utility, the average cost of adding the new wiring and a 2 plug L2 to an apartment or condo is about $8000. If this is for a dedicated spot that is $4000/plug-in. The cost is much lower on new construction, and may be higher on very old buildings or in cities with lots of red tape to improve electrical. You can see the subsidy if it paid completely for these chargers would be less per car, but many places will do this subsidized, unlike hydrogen stations. The utility is encouraging all new construction (homes and apartments) to install 220 outlets to be ready for plug-ins as this is the biggest retrofit cost. There are 3.3 kw L2 chargers that plug-into outlets that cost less than $400. My local utility subsidizes these chargers for up to 50% to a max of $1500, which is much lower than the subsidy per car on hydrogen. UCS estimates that today, 42% of cars have access to infrastructure, and drivers could use todays plug-ins. That is over 80 million vehicles without adding many new plugs in apartments and condos.

NREL thinks to be economic these hyrogen stations need to have almost 4x the throughput and do reforming on site. If you can do that for the same subsidy and get to `1500 fcv for a $2M subsidy, it drops it to a more reasonable $1333/hydrogen station subsidy, and maybe you can get the cost of h2 bellow $6/kg and not need to subsidize that much on top of the station. Renewables add more costs on top of that, perhaps $9/kg for wind and $12/kg for solar. But that is where the vehicle problem comes in, the chickens just aren't good enough. That much lower percentage subsidy would mean you need to sell 1500 x 100 station or 150,000 fcv in california without easy refueling for long trips. When you look at the mirai and honda fcv (clarity gen2?) what are the odds that many people would buy them even with the $13,000/vehicle subsidy they are trying to pass in congress and the 9 zev credits. Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai don't think they can lease close to that many cars, and thus the egg, the refueling infrastructure is going to be quite expensive. Germany thinks they can build 400 of these 350 kg/day stations in 2023 for a subsidy of only 500 million euros, but it is likely there will be severe cost over runs and this date has slipped 3 times. Japan is the most likely place where $2.5 Million/station is okay for a subsidy, there is 3 million yen subsidy on the cars in one prefect ($24,800) and the car companies are going to pay for operation and maintenance on the stations, and the government is fine losing billions on the olympics (sochi cost $51B, vancouver tried the fc busses) and really through 2020 its a drop in the bucket for them. Still Toyota plans to lease a lot more fcv in california than Japan, and california is not in a position to blow Olympic type money on this infrastructure.

 

The future is here in the neighborhood where I work, all wires are underground as far as I can see from my 3rd story window.

 

:lots of places with underground cables and underground natural gas pipelines. They are above ground because it is cheaper. I don't understand how making a more expensive fuel, will disrupt, and make people pay more for that infrastructure. Maybe I'm missing something.

Now I'm really confused. I thought your point of putting in very expensive underground hydrogen pipelines to individual houses is because you wanted to fuel cars.

If you want to fuel fuel cells, most homes, offices, apppartments, etc, already have natural gas running to them. No need for hydrogen infrastructure. Solid oxide fuel cells are cheaper today when used with natural gas to produce heat and electricity, than reforming to hydrogen and using PEM. I know I know you think PEM will become so cheap the government will just give them away for free. Even if that happens you could add a reformer before the PEM fuel cell and have it convert the natural gas to hydrogen before feeding the PEM. That would be a lot less expensive too.

The only problem I see with using fuel cells on natural gas are if, Say you want to use reusable electricity to make the hydrogen then pipe it to your home, then covert it in a fuel cell to make electricity. That just seems really strange, compared to burring the cables and piping the renewable on the grid, much more efficiently. Even with the solid oxide, if you make extra hydrogen from your roof top solar, you could make hydrogen then store it and run it through the fuel cell. That works fine too. you can even buy solid oxide fuel cells that produce hydrogen, I think the Japanese government is working on getting these in appartment complexes that could dispense hydrogen for cars, and make electricity from the natural gas piped in.

Remember at the same pressure you need 3x the cross sectional area to carry the same energy of hydrogen as natural gas. Hydrogen also requires more expensive material stainless steel. That makes hydrogen pipelines much more expensive per inch mile as natural gas.

and yet that same way too heavy phev appears much more efficient on renewable electricity than a fcv, and about the same on natural gas. I'm sure we will see a gen II prius phv in less than 2 year, we also have the i3-rex, ford energis, gen II outlander phev coming next year, volt, a3 phev, bmw 330e coming next year, etc. Lots more choice and convience with phevs than fcv. Honda expects to sell about 35,000 bev and phev versions of its alt car, versus 1500 a year of the fcv. The numbers just don't add up in 2015 or even 2020 for fcv. Maybe in 10 years with some breakthoughs.

I did that on anouther comment. It is much much cheaper to do plugs. That doesn't mean we should not do this demonstration test, but the fueling requires a very high cost per vehicle.

Toyota said in 2008 its batteries cost $1200/kwh, today it cost tesla about $275/kwh. Yes it costs toyota more, but that isn't the test. That means the cost of a 90 kwh battery has fallen to about $25,000.

Toyota claims its fuel cell+ hydrogen tank has fallen from $1M to $50,000. Yes that is much faster, but ... the next words out of their mouths is that they are cheaper than batteries. not true. Yes they are selling the car for less than a tesla, but it is a lesser car. Sure it has dropped faster, but it needs to drop faster as it is twice as expensive today.

Tesla says they should get down to $100/kwh before 2025, toyota in their battery slides seems to agree this is likely. That means a $10,000, 100 kwh battery (60% less). Toyota is hoping to get down to $10,000 (80% less) but no date is specified. I would bet tesla gets their first. All tesla needs is 10% cost reduction per year, and they have been getting 14%, LG is getting similar cost reductions.

I think that is where the difference really is at.

Toyota when they talk about fuel cells is still thinking every one wants there next car to be exactly like their last car. Non disruptive. Fill up at the hydrogen station, which is controlled by a small number of companies, and complain about the cost of fuel. What if people really want to only go to a supercharger or battery swap station on long trips, and just charge at home?

Now you know that some at toyota get it. They were the ones that pained the chairman of the board and chief hydrogen evangelist as don quixote over this fuel cell stuff. They are the ones that dropped the numbers from 5000-10,000/year to we will ramp up to 3,000/year and infrastructure is a problem even then. They also in the no more cars that are straight gasoline, projected toyota phevs would sell more than toyota cars that would not use gas. Those cars that won't use gas are labeled fcv or bev, they didn't break it appart, because they know fcv are gong to have a hard time in the US and China even 35 years from now. They did claim they wouldn't be bevs, but ... they didn't want to put that in writing for anyone to use in the future.

 

Why do you continue to insist that EVs charge as quickly as gas cars?
90% of charging is done at home.
The fast chargers available now, for the Tesla, Leaf, i3, etc are fast enough for most people.
For those few that want it faster, they can stick with gas cars.

Because I start with a full "tank" every morning, I never need to fill up during the day unless I am on a trip. In balance, the increased day to day convenience easily outweighs the rare charging I do on trips. I have not met a single BEV owner that felt otherwise (and I've met hundreds).

 

Where exactly are these "changes need to be made". Power plants?...No. High Voltage transmission lines?....No. Switching or Distribution Substations?....No. Distribution Transformers?...No.

Past this point, it is either a change inside someones garage or adding a commercial charging station/facility. I would not consider these to be changes to the grid. They are (usually) paid for by the folks using them.