Cost of hydrogen power remains biggest hurdle for widespread use says new study
Monday, 4 February 2019
A new study says that hydrogen fuel for vehicles and businesses is unlikely in the foreseeable future - in spite of Government financial support for private company research.
Simon Coates, director of Concept Consulting, said converting electricity or gas to power a fleet of hydrogen trucks would take more than three times more energy than using electricity and batteries.
His report was jointly funded by Contact Energy, the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority, First Gas, Meridian Energy, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, and Powerco.
But Andrew Clennett, the chief executive of hydrogen research company Hiringa Energy, said he was disappointed with the report and hoped it would not influence Government policy.
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Clennett said the report was overly negative and failed to take into account the wider picture - that hydrogen energy would help enable development of clean energy technology.
His company, Hiringa, was working with hydrogen vehicle importers and local fabricators and expected to have a pilot trial under way in 2020.
The cost of hydrogen-powered heavy vehicles is about double that of conventional trucks.
Latest research in China was making progress on reducing the cost of hydrogen fuel cells, Clennett said.
One area where Clennett and Coates agreed was that electric powered heavy trucks were unlikely to be cost effective because of the long battery charging times, and weight and size of batteries, at the expense of freight.
The Concept Consulting report explored the benefits to the environment, which depended on how hydrogen was produced - US-owned Taranaki-based Pouakai NZ is currently researching using natural gas to produce hydrogen, and storing the greenhouse gases that are released as part of the process.
Other 'green' technologies like wind or hydro-electric power to produce hydrogen were neither cost effective or reliable, the report said.
Hydrogen may have potential to decarbonise some on-site freight transport but in most cases it will be more cheaper to use electricity or natural gas directly rather than convert it to hydrogen, the Concept report said.
'Hydrogen technology is continuing to evolve rapidly and may have a role as part of a range of options in decarbonising New Zealand's economy in the long term,' the report said.
'The current lack of refuelling infrastructure is going to be a major impediment to the uptake of heavy electric vehicles or hydrogen vehicles.
'We think it is relatively unlikely that high-power battery charging and hydrogen fuelling infrastructure will both be deployed at a scale needed to changeover New Zealand's heavy transport fleet. The network economies of transport strongly suggest that one technology will emerge as the dominant technology.
'Hydrogen potentially has some advantages that mean it could be competitive in some niche applications, such as 24/7 on-site freight-loading operations, and meeting energy demand for remote off-grid locations.'
About 75 per cent of hydrogen production costs came from energy and network costs, with the balance from operating and storage equipment, the report said.
'Most of the technologies involved in hydrogen production and use are mature and well understood, because they have been used at scale for many decades to support industrial processes such as synthetic fertiliser manufacture. Other hydrogen technologies, such as fuel cells, were discovered many decades ago but have not yet been applied at scale.'
The report said it may be possible to reduce hydrogen production costs during periods of low electricity prices, but this would require more renewable power stations to be built.
Almost three times more renewable energy was required to power a hydrogen vehicle than an electric vehicle, and approximately twice as much renewable energy was required to fuel a hydrogen boiler or heater, compared with an electric boiler or heat pump.
The report is available here.