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Hydrogen refueling station dimensioning using PV electrolysis in FCEV bus for the route Chania downtown-TUC Campus

Antoniadis Konstantinos

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Summary

Throughout the past 100 years the rapid development of technology and industry improved the standard of living of humans. Especially in the field of transportation, an average citizen of a developed country owns at least one car, while the majority of cities have complex transportation networks. The main source of energy used for the above comes from fossil fuels, and thus vast amounts of air pollutants are produced, with negative effects on public health and a large contribution to the greenhouse effect. This constitutes one of the most important modern environmental problems and can make planet earth uninhabitable by the end of the 21st century, if it is not addressed. A solution that can contribute to the alleviation of the aforementioned problem, is the use of hydrogen as an alternative fuel for transportation. The topic of this thesis is the sustainable production and use of hydrogen fuel for heavy-duty vehicles. More specifically, it covers the design of a hydrogen refueling station for such vehicles. The design includes a hydrogen production unit, using the technology of PV electrolysis. The hydrogen produced will then be used to fuel two fuel-cell electric busses for the route of Chania center- TUC. The place in which the station will be located is the main bus depot of the company KTEL-Chania. For the purposes of this project, a variety of FCEBs were examined for the replacement of the conventional ones which are currently being used. The results of this research showed that this task is technically feasible since the unit could be installed in a small area and produce enough hydrogen for the fueling of the FCEBs which would potentially replace the conventional busses for this particular route. Furthermore, the environmental impact of the vehicles used will be minimized, because fuel-cell busses produce only water during their operation (instead of the pollutants produced by conventional vehicles), as a result of the use of hydrogen, and every year the production of 10,02 tn CO2, 44,9 kg NOx and 8,8 kg ΝΟ2 will be avoided. In economic terms the company will have to invest about 1.400.000 € for the construction of the unit and 1.300.000 € for the purchase of the FCEBs, while it will save about 125.000 € yearly from the fossil fuels not used. Without changing the ticket prices, for the 25-year lifetime of the project, the investment seems profitable for the company. However, factors such as the increase in fossil fuel costs and the reduction in hydrogen production costs in the future will not be considered in this thesis.

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