April Updates from CHBC’s Development Specialist
During the course of the month of April, the following notable works were performed by Cory Shumaker.
Attended the HyVolution 2018 on April 4-5 in Paris, France. The summary of the event is as follows:
Every two years the French Hydrogen conference and expo is held in Paris, called Hyvolution. Most of the program (panels, keynotes) were in French with live translators through headsets for English only speakers.
Overall HyVolution was very encouraging for the development of hydrogen projects and commercialization in France. GRTgaz, Europe’s leading natural gas supplier, has a vision of the future of Power-to-Gas in France by recycling CO2 through methanation creating synthetic natural gas utilizing various Power-to-Gas plants from around the country.
When talking about FCEVs it was mentioned that Nissan builds the most electric vehicles in the world. KPMG does a survey of car OEM executives every year and found again that the majority of automotive OEM executives think BEVs will ultimately fail due to infrastructure challenges. Fuel cell cars are the answer in the minds of many: 67% of OEM executives stated they would invest in fuel cell cars in the next 5 years, compared to 69% stated investment in BEVs. By 2025, twelve major cities in the world including Los Angeles and Paris committed to exclusively purchasing zero emission buses, and in some routes fuel cells will have to be used to get the required range on zero emissions. The Mayor of Pau Pyrenees, France is very ambitions with a clean mobility program that includes fuel cell buses. The costs for the electric mobility was 4 times higher than traditional methods so the TCO had to demonstrate sustainability with fuel cell buses. The buses will be provided by Van Hool and the hydrogen will be produced onsite by ITM Power.
The Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region in France has a plan to deploy 1,000 fleet FCVs and 20 hydrogen stations by 2023, this project is called Zero Emission Valley, funded by the region and the European Commission in the amount of 665 million euros with the same amount of matching funds through a 2 for 1 euro invested by the private sector. There are a lot of applications for fuel cells in the microgrid sector for communities without electricity. One billion people live without power in the world today. Things are changing at the European level and France is finally joining the head of the hydrogen race in Europe. It is making progress in the field of mobility, transport, and industrialization. Green hydrogen can contribute to the decarbonization of transport, it is the link that is missing between energy and mobility. The focus is on professional fleets of taxis and buses in France. In Paris there is a fleet of fuel cell taxis called Hype using Toyota Mirai’s and Hyundai Tucsons with a current fleet of 75 and a target of 600 taxis by 2020.
Attended Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Public Forum at Hannover Messe on April 25th in Hannover, Germany. The notes from this meeting are as follows:
There are a number of developments in Norway, growing demand of using renewable energy and using that energy for hydrogen production; there will be a situation of surplus renewable electricity in the near future. Statoil does a lot of SMR of hydrogen and will be stepping up with a large scale production of hydrogen including carbon capture and sequester in North Sea caverns. The first public state run ferry running on hydrogen will be demonstrated in 2021.
There’s a lot of different maritime concept studies happening. First regulations and standards need to be developed before more applications can be utilized. Propulsion of cruise ships is only 20% of the energy demand and is a great opportunity for fuel cells. This will create a demand for hydrogen in ports. 5-10 huge hydrogen refueling stations will be developed by Statoil around Europe. It will take at least 5 years to see cruise ships running on hydrogen. There is good competition between Viking Cruise lines and others like Royal Caribbean doing fuel cell activities. Container ships could follow after at some point with the development of liquid hydrogen. Fuel cell systems that will be used on maritime vessels soon in Norway and will be using existing fuel cell systems seen on buses and trains. There is a large project on the west coast of Norway with Tsid that will be using hydrogen as a reducing agent with coal. They will need tons of hydrogen per day. Tesla is the most popular car in Norway. People are lining up at the charging stations, it’s really a challenging situation on Friday evenings. Growing problem with a need for more EVs. FCEVs will play a larger role in the future. The Parliament of Norway stated in 2016 that when the technology is available diesel trains will be replaced with zero emission technologies. Norway is working on having 50 hydrogen stations by 2025.
In terms of small scale refueling, small hydrogen fueling stations will be key for Germany and Europe to roll out FCEVs. They can be 1kg/hr, 4kg/hr, and bigger to accommodate a slow growth demand. This is the third wave of hydrogen but it has more momentum with the Paris Agreement and increased worldwide investment in hydrogen than in years past. ITM Power now has the world’s largest PEM electrolyzer, working with Shell on a 10MW electrolyzer for at the Wesseling refinery site within the Rheinland Refinery Complex in Germany. 180,000 tons per year of hydrogen demand, 1% of the total hydrogen needed by the refinery will be provided by the electrolyzer. The five year project funded by FCHJU with 3 years of demonstration to test the technology and business case. It’s Germany’s largest refinery and has the ability to use the oxygen generated by the electrolyzer as well. The electrolyzer also helps modulate the electricity consumption for the whole refinery to stabilize their off take from the grid. Could potentially export hydrogen to the mobility sector. Power network now has to deal with an increase in renewable power and electrolyzers are a great way to manage that excess power. PEM is very useful for Power-to-Gas in the way that it can quickly respond to various electricity fluctuations.
In Canada, there are improving conditions for hydrogen. The Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association participates in advocacy, community outreach, funding, and communication. There will be 6 hydrogen fueling stations going into the south area around Vancouver in the next 18 months. The Province of Quebec will be receiving a fleet of Mirais and Tuscons. Metrolinx is working on a study for urban transport using hydrogen trains around the Toronto area. Hydrogenics will build with Alstrom 40 trains by 2020 for German states. In India, there are air quality issues and India Oil Corporation is researching using fuel cells.