Energy storage at all timescales, including the seasonal scale, plays a pivotal role in enabling increased penetration levels of wind and solar photovoltaic energy sources in power systems.
Vehicle Driving Range: In FY 2008, the driving range of the project's FCEVs was evaluated based on fuel economy from dynamometer testing (EPA adjusted) and on-board hydrogen storage amounts and compared to the 250-mile target. The resulting second-generation vehicle v driving range from the four teams was 196-254 miles, which met DOE's 250-mile range target. In June 2009, an on-road driving range evaluation was performed in collaboration with Toyota and Savannah River National Laboratory. The results indicated a 431-mile on-road range was possible in southern California using Toyota's FCHV-adv fuel cell vehicle [5]. More recently, the significant on-road data that have been obtained from second-and first-generation vehicles allowed a comparison of the real-world driving ranges of all the vehicles in the project. The data show that there has been a 45% improvement in the median distance between fueling events of second-generation vehicles (81 miles) as compared to first-generation vehicles (56 miles), based on actual distances driven between more than 25,000 fueling events. Over the last two years, we saw a continuation of this trend, with a median distance between fuelings of 98 miles, which is a 75% improvement over the first-generation vehicles. Obviously the vehicles are capable of two to three times greater range than this, but the median distance travelled between fuelings is one way to measure the improvement in the vehicles' capability, driver comfort with station location and availability, and how they are actually being driven. On-Site Hydrogen Production Cost: Cost estimates from the Learning Demonstration energy company partners were used as inputs to an H2A analysis [6] to project the hydrogen cost for 1,500 kg/day early market fueling stations. H2A is DOE's suite of hydrogen analysis tools, with the H2A Production model focused on calculating the costs of producing hydrogen. Results from version 2.1 of the H2A Production model indicated that on-site natural gas reformation could lead to a cost range of roughly $8-$10/kg and on-site electrolysis could lead to a hydrogen cost of $10-$13/kg. Note that 1 kg hydrogen is approximately equal to the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, or gallon gasoline equivalent (gge). While these project results do not achieve the $3/gge cost target, two external independent review panels commissioned by DOE concluded that distributed natural gas reformation could lead to a cost range of $2.
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