Detailed Cost Analysis of Hydrogen Refueling Costs for Fleets

The costs for hydrogen refueling of fleets were calculated by a two-step approach. Firstly, different hydrogen refueling station (HRS) system configurations were simulated and optimized for various HRS sizes and 350 bar pressure, with the Fraunhofer ISE's toolkit H2ProSim, showing that large-scale and pipeline-supplied HRS can reduce the hydrogen refueling costs. Secondly, as customer travel costs to the HRS play an important role, especially in the hydrogen market activation phase, the placement and dimensioning of the HRS network was optimized in a case study for the Upper Rhine region. The analysis shows possible network structure and cost distributions for a set of specific customers. Hydrogen supply costs are highly dependent on the hydrogen demand and spatial distribution of the customers and can drop to values of around € 0.60 kg-1 for depot refueling stations for high-volume customers. However, some customers cannot be supplied at a reasonable cost.