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Converting all U.S. onroad vehicles to hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (HFCVs) may improve air quality, health, and climate significantly, whether the hydrogen is produced by steam reforming of natural gas, wind electrolysis, or coal gasification. Most benefits would result from eliminating current vehicle exhaust. Wind and natural gas HFCVs offer the greatest potential health benefits and could save 3700 to 6400 U.S. lives annually. Wind HFCVs should benefit climate most. An all-HFCV fleet would hardly affect tropospheric water vapor concentrations. Conversion to coal HFCVs may improve health but would damage climate more than fossil/electric hybrids. The real cost of hydrogen from wind electrolysis may be below that of U.S. gasoline.

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PHASE I WECC PHASE II EIC + ERCOT v 2. What are the most cost-effective technology options for providing additional balancing requirements today and in 2020 assuming technological progress? Our analysis includes the following technologies: i. Combustion turbine as a base case technology ii. Na-S (Sodium Sulfur) batteries iii. Li-ion (Lithium-ion batteries) iv. Flywheel v. CAES (Compressed Air Energy Storage) vi. Redox Flow batteries vii. Pumped Hydroelectric (PHES) Storage viii. Demand Response ix. Hybrid energy storage systems (configurations of various above mentioned storage technologies) 3. What is the market size (quantified in MW and MWh) for energy storage and its respective cost targets (expressed in $/kWh) for balancing and energy arbitrage applications by regions? Key Outcomes Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) analyzed a hypothetical 2020 grid scenario in which additional wind power is assumed to be built to meet WECC's 20% renewable energy portfolio standard target. Several models were used to address the three questions, including a stochastic model for estimating the balancing requirements using current and future wind statistics and the statistics of forecasting errors. A detailed engineering model was used to analyze the dispatch of energy storage and fast-ramping generation devices for estimating capacity requirements of energy storage and generation that meet the new balancing requirements. Financial models estimated the life-cycle cost (LCC) of storage and generation systems and included optimal sizing of energy storage and generation to minimize LCC. Finally, a complex utility-grade production cost model was used to perform security constrained unit commitment and optimal power flow for the WECC. Outcome 1: Total Balancing Market in the WECC is Estimated to be 6.32 GW Assuming about 24 GW of Installed Wind Capacity in 2020 The total amount of power capacity for a 20% RPS scenario in the WECC for 2020 would require a total intra-hour balancing capacity of approximately ~6.32 GW. The total market size was estimated for the WECC by NERC sub-regions based on the potential for energy storage in the high-value balancing market. The energy capacity, if provided by energy storage, would be approximately 2.0 GWh, or a storage that could provide power at rated capacity for about 20 minutes. The additional intra-hour balancing capacity that is required to accommodate the variability due to capacity addition in wind technology and load growth from 2011-2020 was estimated to be 1.53 GW. If these additional balancing services were provided by new energy storage technology, the energy capacity would be about 0.58 GWh, or a storage capable of providing electricity at the rated power capacity for about 20 minutes. vi The regional distribution of balancing requirements within the WECC is driven by load forecasting wind prediction errors. Because of the non-homogeneous distribution of the loads and wind across the WECC region, the balancing requirements increase with load and wind capacity. NWPP and Ca...

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This article presents a design for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA) methodology for estimating the capital costs of new, emerging energy technologies built at varying rates of massproduction. The methodology consists of four major steps: (1) System Conceptual Design, (2) System Physical Design, (3) CostModeling, and (4) Continuous Improvement to Reduce Cost. The article describes the application of this methodology to a specific case study of automotive fuel cell systems (FCSs). Because any alternative automotive technology must compete with the very mature and widespread gasoline internal combustion engine, it is vitally important to identify the performance, design, and manufacturing conditions needed to reduce automotive FCS costs. Thus, a DFMA-style analysis is applied to the cost to manufacture a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEMj FCS for cars, at vaiying rates of production (between 1,000 and 500,000 vehicles per year). The results of this kind of DFMA-style analysis can be used to elucidate key cost drivers at varying levels of production for new energy technologies.