The Economics of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Buses*

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a cost-effectiveness analysis comparing diesel, compressed natural gas and hydrogen fuel cell buses in the Perth bus fleet based on a well-to-wheels cost analysis of each technology. Despite its significant environmental benefits in operation, the high initial cost of the prototype hydrogen fuel cell bus means that it cannot compete financially with the fossil fuel technologies. Therefore, the study was undertaken assuming that the buses, including fuel cells, are produced under conditions of economies of scale and that a fully developed fuel infrastructure for the provision of hydrogen exists.

China Progress on Renewable Energy Vehicles: Fuel Cells, Hydrogen and Battery Hybrid Vehicles

“…Fuel cell bus fleets have been demonstrated in Europe and Australia from 2001 to 2006 in 11 cities with 3 buses each, under projects Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE) [1], Ecological City Transport System (ECTOS) [2] and Sustainable Transport Energy for Perth (STEP) [3]. In Japan, 8 FCHV-BUSes carried one million visitors and traveled about 130,000 km during 6 months of Expo 2005 Aichi and Toyota plans to introduce over 100 FC buses ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo [4].…”

Are HFC buses a feasible alternative for urban transportation in Paraguay?

“…[32], the total cost, including the internalization of the social externalities, has the following expression: a This price reflects not only the high cost nature of the fuel cell and associated components, but also the lack of economies of scale in production [10].…”

“…This price reflects not only the high cost of the fuel cell and associated components, but also the lack of economy of scale in production. Rebuilding of the fuel cell stack and cylinder testing is required every 3 years [10]. The high capital cost of the HFC buses would clearly render then both financially and economically non-viable relative to their fossil fuel counterpart in the current technology context.…”

“…To enable a more realistic comparison between the conventional diesel and the HFC buses, it was assumed that HFC buses had also reached this level in the evolution of the technology. For the base case, therefore, the difference in price between a conventional diesel bus and the HFC bus was assumed to be US$ 25 thousands [10].…”

The role of hydrogen in Australia's transport energy mix

“…The economics of hydrogen bus transportation were analysed by Cockroft and Owen [48] using a multi-criteria approach, which estimated the societal costs and benefits of the technology using data and statistics derived from the trial. An LCA on the trial was published by Ally and Pryor [49], [50], and the potential for cost reduction of Australian fuel cell buses by leveraging the larger bus chassis market was explored in [51].…”